a trivial circumstance finally enlightened her as to the length and breadth of the distance between them.
one morning at the breakfast table cutter looked at his wife appraisingly. they had been married eleven years. she was still pretty, but it was a beauty maturing into a sort of serenity, no vivacity. she had, in fact, a noble look. stupid women do frequently get it. he had long since made up his mind that helen was, to say the least of it, mentally prismatic. she had no elasticity of charm. still he resolved to risk her.
“helen, shippen gets in from new york this afternoon. i want to bring him out here for dinner. do you think you can manage it?” he asked.
“the dinner? why, yes, of course, george,” she replied, having no doubt about being able to manage a dinner. this mr. shippen could not possibly be more exacting than george was himself.
[129]“he is coming down to look at that pyrites mine i want to sell. we are going to get into this war, and the government is bound to need pyrites. shippen is tremendously rich, something of a sport, i imagine. he was rather nice to me when i was in new york last month, introduced me to a lot of men i need to know,” he explained. “so you must help me out by doing your best,” he added significantly.
“i will, dear,” she assured him, still unperturbed.
this serene confidence disturbed him. he doubted if she could put across the simplest meal in a correct manner. during the lifetime of his mother, his father had entertained such out-of-town guests; but these excellent parents had been dead for years. he was obliged to fall back on helen.
“you must do your best and look your best. you are lovely, you know.”
“am i?” she asked, not coquettishly, but as if this was an opportunity to assure herself about something which was causing her anxiety.
“yes, of course, you are,” he returned in a matter-of-fact tone. this was no time to get personal with his wife. he wanted her to do something and do it well.
[130]“wear that gown i bought you from madame lily’s,” he suggested.
“oh! must i?” she exclaimed as if she asked, would it be as bad as that?
“the very thing, and wear the necklace.”
she said she would, but what she thought was that if she must dress like this she could not stay in the kitchen and help maria with the dinner, and maria was not to be trusted. she was “heavy handed” when it came to salt, for example. her chief concern was for the dinner, not herself. she always missed her cue.
nevertheless, shippen had the shock of his swift life when he was presented to mrs. cutter that evening.
the weather was very cold. a bright fire burned in the grate. a chandelier of four lights overhead left scarcely a shadow in this cheap little parlor. everything in it glared. the white walls stared you out of countenance. the golden-oak piano turned a broadside of yellow brilliance across the flowered rug. the whatnot showed off. the spindle-back sofa fairly twinkled varnish. inanimate things can sometimes produce the impression of tittering excitement. the furniture in this pop-eyed room seemed to be expecting company. only the two mahogany armchairs on[131] either side of the fireplace preserved their gravity and indifference, as if they had been born and bred to be sat in by the best people.
shippen saw all this at a glance; at least he felt it without knowing what ailed him. later he was to quail in a sort of artistic anguish beneath the cold, calm, crayon gaze of that excellent carpenter, the late sam adams, whose portrait still hung above the mantel. and he was to feel the colder, grimmer crayon eyes of the late mrs. mary adams piercing him between the shoulder blades from the opposite wall. but that which riveted his attention this first moment when he entered the room with cutter was mrs. cutter.
she stood on the rug before the fire, a slim figure, but not tall. she was wearing a cloth gown of the palest rose lavender, the bodice cut low, fitting close to her white shoulders, lace on it somewhere like a mist, a wildly disheveled bow of twisted black velvet that seemed to strike at him, it was so vivid by contrast with all this gem paleness of color. a necklace of opals, very small and bound together by the thinnest thread of gold, with a pendant lay upon her breast. her pale blond hair was dressed simply, bound about her head like piety, not a crown. no color in her skin, only the soft pink lips, sweetened somehow[132] by that pointed flute in the upper lip, long sweeping brows, darker than her hair, spread like slender wings above the wide open blue eyes, seeing all things gravely, neither asking nor giving confidences.
“this is mr. shippen, helen. my wife, shippen,” george finished cheerfully.
he had made a hasty survey of helen. she would do, he decided, if only she would go, move off, say the right thing.
helen offered her hand. she was glad to meet mr. shippen.
he bowed over this hand, very glad, and so forth and so on.
she said something about the weather; he did not notice what she said nor what he answered; something about the same weather of course. but whatever he said had not released him from her gaze. she kept him covered. cutter had joined in with his feelings and opinion on the weather. what was said made no difference. shippen had to keep his eyes down or running along the floor, not on mrs. cutter. men do that when they are startled or ill at ease with a woman, if they are uncertain about where to place her in the category of her sex. shippen was very uncertain on this point. he had seen many a woman better[133] gowned, more beautiful, but never had he seen one with this winged look.
“are we late?” cutter asked, addressing his wife.
“no,” she answered briefly, as if words were an item with her.
“well, anyhow we are hungry,” he laughed. “took shippen out for a little winter golf. links rotten after all this rain. no game. all we got was an appetite.”
shippen glanced at cutter. for the first time he recognized cutter. smart fellow, pipping his village shell. but, good heaven, this room! might have got further than this in his scenery.
he went on catching impressions. he felt very keen. it occurred to him suddenly that cutter’s wife was responsible for the room. this fellow who could fly like a kite in the markets couldn’t fly here or move or change anything. odd situation. if this was her taste in house furnishing, who chose her frock for her? she was dressed like a fashionable woman, and she looked like a madonna; not virginal, but awfully still like the image of something immortally removed. she gave him a queer feeling. still it was distinctly a sensation; he handed it to her for that.
all this time cutter was talking like a man[134] covering some kind of breach, laughing at the end of every sentence. he heard himself making replies, also laughing. nothing from mrs. cutter. he looked across at her seated in the other mahogany chair, and dropped his eyes. her gaze was still fixed on him, no shadow of a smile on her face. he understood why instantly. this was not mirth, this was laughter he and cutter were executing as people do when they make conversation. he was amazed at this woman’s independence. she had nothing to say and said it in silence. she heard nothing amusing, therefore she was not smiling. she was not even embarrassed.
it all depends upon your experience and angle of vision what you see in another person. this is why your husband may discover that some other woman understands him better than you do. she knows him better than you do because she knows more about men than you do. and if there is anything that weakens the moral knees of a man quicker even than strong drink, it is to feel the soothing flattery of being better understood by another woman.
precisely in this way shippen understood helen, and knew perfectly that cutter was not the man who could do it. she was invincible, he[135] saw that; stupid, he saw that. and he was enough of a connoisseur in this matter to realize that intelligence would sully this lovely thing. merriment would be a facial transgression. she was that rare and most mysterious of all creatures, a simply good woman without the self-consciousness they usually feel in their virtues.
he kept on with these reflections during dinner, which was served presently. he had no idea what kind of dinner it was. he was assembling plans for a speculation. he had been successful in many lines besides those involving money.
“you come to new york occasionally, don’t you, mrs. cutter?” he asked, endeavoring to engage her in conversation.
“not that often. i have been there only once,” she told him with a faint smile. she had referred to her wedding journey without naming it. at that time she and george had spent a week in new york.
“you liked it, of course?” shippen went on.
“it is like a book with too many pages, too many illustrations, too many quotations, isn’t it?” she evaded.
shippen threw back his handsome black head and laughed.
cutter shot a bright glance at his wife and[136] joined in this applause. he had no idea she could think anything as good as that to say. and she could not have done so if he had asked the question.
“what i mean is that one must live there a long time before he could know whether he liked it or not,” she explained.
“well, i think you would,” he answered, meaning some flattery which she did not get.
having said so much, she had nothing else to say. the two men went on with this discussion of new york life. cutter was determined to let shippen know that he was no stranger to it—old stuff, such as brokers and buyers get, under the impression that they are bounding up the social ladder of the great metropolis. shippen heard him give quite frankly his café experiences, not omitting soubrettes. no harm in what he was telling, of course, but as a rule men didn’t do it at home.
once or twice he glanced at mrs. cutter, ready to come to heel, change the subject if he saw the faintest shade of annoyance on her face. there was no shade there at all, only a calm, clear look. and this look was fixed on him as if he were a page she read out of the book of this city. apparently she was indifferent to what cutter was[137] saying. he decided that she was not jealous of her husband.
he wondered if cutter had the least conception of the kind of woman his wife was. he thought not. some day she would stand immovable in the way of his ambitions, he decided. in that case what would cutter do? this was—well, it might prove very interesting. he went on speculating personally along this line.
the reason why so many men try to climb mount everest is because they cannot do it. let even one reach the summit, and that exalted peak has fallen into the hands of the tame geographers and scientists. it becomes a business then, not an adventure, to chart those terrific altitudes. for the same reason the most attractive woman to men is the unattainable woman. shippen found mrs. cutter attractive. he did not analyze the reason why. it was not her beauty. he had had success with far more beautiful women. he doubted his success here. heavens! to find a woman who could not be won! what an adventure. that steady, unrevealing gaze in her blue eyes—what did it conceal? what did she know? he doubted if she knew anything. that was it; she was something real, not built up out of little knowledges, little virtues, spiced with little vices,[138] and finished like her furniture with the varnish of feminine charms. what a noble change from the skittish kittens and the secret viragoes and the mercenary starlings he had known.
it is astonishing what terrible things a man can be thinking, while he looks at you frankly and laughs honestly and takes your food like a brother. certainly cutter would have been astonished if he had known what was passing through the mind of his guest as they talked and laughed together at this table. but it is a question if helen would have been moved. she did not know this man, but she felt him like a darkness, in no way personal to her, but there, with george frisking around like an ambitious spark in this blackness. she was thinking of george chiefly, interpreting him according to shippen. it was a fearful experience, and no one suspected her pain, because a woman can dig her own grave and step down into it behind the look and the smile and the duty she gives you, and it may be years before you discover that she is gone.
all this is put in for the emotional reader who knows it is the truth, and has probably felt the sod above herself, even while she is sadly dressing beautifully for an evening’s pleasure with a husband who has slain her or a lover whose perfidy[139] has brought on these private obsequies. but all such truth is unhealthy, like the failure of courage in invalids. and in this particular i warn you that the fate of helen differs from your own. she died a few times, as the most valorous women do; but she had a sublime instinct for surviving these incidental passings.
shortly after dinner cutter took shippen back to his hotel. they had some affairs to discuss further before he should leave on the early morning train. cutter explained to helen, because this was unusual. it was his invariable habit to spend his evenings at home. he was a good husband, according to the strictest law of the scribes and pharisees, so to speak. what i mean is that he was literally faithful to his wife, though you may have suspected to the contrary. this is not the author’s fault, but due to the evil culturing of your own mind. a man may be faithful to his wife, and at the same time frisk through the night life of a place like new york. he may be doing nothing worse than taking a whiff and an eyeful of the naughty world, getting something to talk about to the other fellows when he comes home. it is silly, but not wicked, as you are inclined to believe. i do not know why it is that so many respectable women are disposed to suspect the[140] worst where men are concerned; but it is a fact which even their pastors will not deny.
when cutter came in that night helen had retired. he turned on the light. “asleep, my dear?” he asked.
“no,” she replied in that tone a woman has when her voice sounds like the nice, small voice of your conscience.
he came and sat down on the side of the bed, regarded her cheerfully, like the messenger of good tidings. she lay very flat, hands folded across her breast, face in repose, no expression, eyes wide open, a state of self-consciousness bordering onto unconsciousness which women sometimes sink into as a sort of last ditch.
cutter was so elated about something he did not observe that his wife was dying momentarily. he wanted to talk. he had something to tell her. “you were splendid to-night, helen,” he began.
she revived sufficiently to ask him if the dinner was “all right.”
“dinner!” he exclaimed. “i scarcely noticed what we had to eat. you took the shine off the dinner. you were stunning. means a lot to a man for his wife to—make good; sets him up. shippen was impressed, i can tell you that.”
[141]shippen! she did not speak the name, but her glance, slowly turned on him, meant it.
“how did you like him?” he wanted to know.
“i did not like him,” she answered distinctly.
he stared at her. her respiration was the same; her eyes coldly impersonal. he sprang to his feet, kicked off his shoes, flung off his clothes, snapped off the light and retired to the bitter frost of that bed. he lay flat, clinched his hands across his breast and worked his toes as if these toes were the claws of a particularly savage beast. his chest rose and fell like bellows. his red brown eyes snapped in the dark.
helen was the antidote for success, he reflected furiously. she was the medicine he had to take, a depressant that kept him down when he might have been up. just let him get the wind in his sails, and she reefed him every time. he had been patient, leaving her to have her own way when it was not his way. hadn’t he lived in his own house with those blamed adams pictures glaring at him for nine years? yet he had endured them for helen’s sake. and the druggets, and the very cast-off teacups of helen’s family.
right now he was lying in old mrs. adams’ bed and had done so for nine years, when he much preferred his own bed. he had tried to bring[142] helen out, and she would not be moved. he had tried to dress her according to her station in life, and she would not be dressed. he had humored her in everything. but now when he had an opportunity, a big chance which he could not take without her, she planted her feet as usual. she obstructed him at every turn. she didn’t like shippen. that showed which way the wind would blow when he told her. and he had to tell her. he could not move hand or foot without her. but, by heaven! if she didn’t come across this time—
“george,” came a voice from the adjacent pillow.
“umph!” he answered, startled out of finishing that threat he was about to think.
“you asked me, or i should not have told you what i think of mr. shippen. but since you want to know—”
“i don’t want to know. i am trying to get a little sleep. i’m tired,” he interrupted.
“but since you ask,” she went on, “i think he is horrible. he reminds me of the powers and principalities of darkness. he made my flesh creep—”
“for the love of peace, helen, stop. you know absolutely nothing about him.”
[143]“yes, i do.”
“what?”
“i know that he is wicked.”
“how do you know?”
“i feel it.”
he snorted and turned over. he slept that night with his back to this slanderer, who did not sleep at all.
