sometimes when a man has been shot, he stands for the briefest moment before he falls. so cutter stood, still facing the window, while the fatal shock passed through him. this was helen who had spoken, who had reminded him of the time when his train left, but not his wife. he flirted his head around and snatched a glance at her.
she was sitting very erect, not touching the back of her chair. the little frills on her dress stuck up stiffly, like the petals of a very fine white flower. her cheeks were scarlet above this whiteness; but there were no tears. her chin was lifted; her lips closed; her eyes covering him like a frost on a cold clear night, one of those still nights when the whole of nature’s business is to freeze. he turned, took a step toward her, and did not dare take the next step.
you may think you are making the best of a bad situation by ending it. you may persuade yourself that you are doing the square thing,[174] praise yourself for behaving better than the average man does in a similar predicament. then suddenly something happens, a word falls upon your ear, or you see yourself revealed in the eye of your victim as a rogue, a common fellow who has lost his standing.
cutter had some such sensation as this, confused but devastating. he was determined to be free, to be no longer bound to this woman who ceased to appeal to him and who did not belong to the world he had won by success. but how was this? she had turned the tables on him. she was not only taking him at his word; she was dismissing him.
i do not say that it is a queer thing about a man of this quality, but it is one of the abortive characteristics of every man of this quality, that he has a dog-in-the-manger instinct always toward the wife he discards. he expects her to remain cravenly faithful to him, to love and cherish him tearfully and patiently while he takes a whiff around, because, heaven bless us, isn’t that the nature of good and chaste women? it was. and yet here was helen, instantly assuming the autonomous attitude of a free state. she was making no effort to hold him or save him.
hang it all, a man never could understand a[175] woman! here he was standing before his discarded wife, having done the best he could for her, divided his fortune with her, released her from her normal duties to him, while he might have kept this property and lived as he pleased. and in spite of all this, he was made to feel strangely humiliated, worthless and unspeakable to her. this was what her look and manner meant. good heaven, he could not slink off defeated like this! he had meant to go with his head up, not diminished. the sting of that would interfere with his pleasure, and he had made expensive plans for a gratifying existence in new york.
“what i want, helen,” he began after this tumultuous pause, speaking in the husband tone of voice, “is a sensible understanding, not a breach. i have provided for you as my wife should be provided for. if you should ever need my help or protection—”
“you have barely time to make your train,” she interrupted, glancing at the clock and keeping her eye now on this clock. her voice was not that of a wife, but of a lady, speaking probably to some agent whom she was determined to get out of the house before he sold her something she did not want and could not use.
[176]“oh, very well, if you won’t be reasonable!” he exclaimed as he strode flashily past her.
but when he reached the door he halted, looked back at her like an actor being put out of the scene and required by his lines to pause, show indecision, the fangs of his outraged emotions to the appreciative audience. but there was no audience to witness cutter’s histrionic exit; only this neat, cool, little star of a lady with flaming cheeks, whose eyes remained resolutely upon the face of the clock.
this man, who a while ago could not bear the touch of his wife’s hand, experienced a momentary revulsion toward his own future, to all it offered. he wanted to go back, take helen in his arms, kiss her, feel the cleanness and sweetness of her goodness and nearness to him. but this was only momentary. he remembered the dullness of the years. he must buck up, he told himself hastily; just let him get through, escape this last tug of the old life and he would be a free man. beneath this shrewd calculation of himself, there was a faint premonition that he had better not go back in there to perform these last sacred rites of parting with his wife. he was afraid of her, as criminals fear law.
he went out, closing the front door softly behind[177] him. he walked hurriedly toward the station, disturbed and shamed by the thoughts his very steps seemed to toss up in his mind. for months, while his affair in new york was progressing lightly but surely toward this crisis, he had dreaded this scene with helen. he had felt for her, the distress and anguish she must suffer at the idea of losing him. he had always been as sure as that of her deep devotion. now it appeared that he had lost helen. he realized suddenly that he had counted on her. whatever he became, back here in that quiet house helen would always be his wife. she was not the woman to think of a divorce.
well, he had been a fool not to have understood all along that helen would be true to herself as usual, to her own convictions, whatever they were. and he was no longer one of these convictions. life was a mess, anyhow. if a man failed, he had poverty pawing at his door. if he succeeded, made a fortune, his nature, his tastes and desires all changed. if only helen had gone out and made a name or a fortune, achieved something in the world, he supposed she would be different too. maybe she would have understood—
the whistle of a locomotive in the distance[178] ended these speculations. he stepped from the pavement and swung with long strides down the railroad track to where the sleeping cars would stop. a moment later there was a rattle of the rails, a roar and a grinding of brakes. the self-bereaved husband climbed aboard, walked magnificently up the aisle of the car to his section, sat down, rumbled a command to the porter and heaved a sigh.
he was immensely relieved. the worst of it was over. he had suffered some, but he was feeling very fit now, animated. he was done with the past. he was headed for new york, the city that whetted a man’s senses and ambitions. he had worked hard. the world owed him something for that. no place like new york for collecting what the world owed a fellow, and so on and so forth.
the other passengers in the coach stared at him. people always did. impressive looking man, must be somebody, they decided. no one would have dared drop his bag in that section and sit down opposite such an oppressively prosperous looking person, not even if he had a ticket for the “upper.” he would have glanced at his ticket, at cutter; then he would have gone on to the “smoker” and arranged with the porter to[179] let him know when he might climb into his berth, which, of course, would be after the great man had gone to bed in the lower one.
this is the professional pose of the recent-rich man. every one who rides in sleepers and parlor cars is familiar with the type. sometimes a shoe drummer can put it on to perfection; but as a rule it is a fellow like cutter, whose character and tastes and manners have been developed by the shock of wealth, a diseased man morally who receives more involuntary respect than any really distinguished man could bear.
a man in mental, moral or financial distress will frequently pace the floor all night. but women never do, because the forms of grief and anxiety to which they are subject weaken them physically so that they immediately take to their beds in anticipation of this prostration. therefore i hold that it is a circumstance worth mentioning that helen did not retire that night. she remained seated as he had left her until she heard the express go by. then she went through the house turning out the lights.
maria, she observed by the seam of light under the kitchen door, was still in there. if all her faculties had not been concentrated on something else, she might have wondered why maria was[180] later than usual in clearing up after dinner. she passed back up the hall without so much as a look at her bed through the open door of her room, and sat down again in the same chair in the parlor, as you go back to the place where you left off in a book or to a train of thought when you have been interrupted.
there could never be real darkness in shannon any more, because the city had “water and electric lights” now. still the room was nearly dark, with only a faint reflection of the street light far below through the window. helen sat like the ghost of herself in this dimness and silence. she was not thinking nor feeling. she had literally been drugged by the horror of this last hour. she was numb—past all pain. presently she must return to consciousness; but she instinctively prolonged this trance. sometimes she changed her position in her chair, but never once did she languish or cover her face with her hands or address her father in heaven.
here was a woman on her mettle at last, asking no odds of heaven. so long as you have a husband, it is natural to remain in prayerful communication with providence for help and guidance, but when your husband has abandoned you[181] there is no such tearful feminine reason for engaging the assistance of the almighty. you may do it later; but for the moment you feel quite alone in the universe.
