CHAPTER XI

I revelled in the heavy cold which kept me indoors. No amount of urging or cajoling on the part of my husband could induce me to see the doctor. Were I to express a preference for some other physician, Will's suspicions might be aroused. Experience applied old-fashioned remedies and in a few days I was able to be about the room. Mrs. Pease telephoned daily and called several times in person. Will saw her, but Experience had been instructed that I could see no one. During my retirement I had turned things over in my mind, arguing _pro_ and _con_ the advisability of a thorough understanding with Will. It appeared to me that the danger of such a proceeding lay in the tearing down of barriers which could never again be replaced--a rending aside of all illusion between us. Heretofore I had refrained from any expression of animadversion of his profession or his conduct. If he suspected any dissatisfaction on my part he preferred to let it pass without comment.

Spasmodically he indulged in bursts of confidence--confidences of the kind not calculated to improve my opinion of his profession. At such times he appeared fully to appreciate the corroding atmosphere in which he lived. He even contemplated retiring from the stage. These phases were rare, however, generally attending a disappointment in a role, discontent with an engagement or unfavourable criticism of his work. The mood soon passed and he appeared to be content with the ephemeral joys of the moment.

The longer I brooded over the subject the less sure I became of any good to be attained by a frank expression of my mind. Were I to eliminate all circumlocution and say: "My husband, there is something fundamentally wrong with a profession which demands a compromise with one's best instincts," or "the class of people with which you come in daily contact make for your ultimate degradation," or, again, "I do not approve of your petty deceits, the complacency with which you accept moral obliquity, the low standard which permeates our entire life," this would call for amplification, an indulgence in personalities which could result only in a greater breach between us. I might even be accused of jealousy, inconsideration for his future, and a lack of faith in the man.

It had often occurred to me that there was such a thing as too great intimacy, a too careless frankness between husband and wife! A lack of reserve which ended in a secret contempt for each other's weaknesses. To be tolerant of and to respect these weaknesses while striving to stimulate the best in each other's nature; in short, to be a complement, each to the other, this appeared to me the basic principle of marriage. And as I had done in the past I again fell back upon my inner self. I wanted, O, I so wanted to develop the best that was in him ... and there was much, nearly all of him was good. The danger lay in environment....

One day--it was a week later that Will had planned to dine at the Press Club--I lay on the couch watching Boy. He sat on a fur rug on the floor, playing with Snyder. Experience had gone down to an early dinner. There was a knock on the door. I called out, "Come in." It was the doctor.

"I took advantage of my professional capacity and came up unannounced," he said, easily, without directly looking at me. He removed his coat and tickled Boy's face with the tail of the fur lining. Boy drew up his nose and laughed at the sensation, and the doctor dropped the coat upon the floor for him to play with. Then he squatted beside him while Boy stroked the fur and called it "cat." For several minutes the doctor busied himself with the child, deploring the deformities of Snyder and imitating a dog's bark.

"Great boy, that!" he concluded, rising to his feet and taking a long breath.

"Now, then, tell me all about it," he said, drawing up a chair in a purely professional manner and looking at me without a trace of self-consciousness. "You're pale; that's what you get for not sending for the doc. How's your pulse?" He reached for my hand and held it regardless of my frowning face.... "Rotten ... you need a tonic. I'll write a prescription right off." There was silence while he wrote. Then he rose, placed the slip of paper on the table, tossed the boy in the air and crossed back, looking down at me with his hands in his pockets.

"Well, little girl, what have you got to say for yourself?... I suppose you're still sore on me ... forget it and forgive. I apologize. I acted like a beast, I know.... It was the booze. It got the better of my judgment. Just the same, _in vino veritas_, I was most terribly stuck on you--and still am--no, sit still! I'm cold sober.... I thought, of course, you were like the rest.... Come, shake hands with me and say all is forgiven. I saw your husband to-day and he told me to come and see you.... I knew then that it was all right.... I felt sure you had too much common sense to tell hubby.... When are you coming out of the nunnery?..." He threw himself into the chair and smiled genially. I was holding fast to something he had said: "I thought of course you were like the rest." ...

"Doctor, will you answer me a question--truthfully, I mean?"

"I will if I can," he flashed back at me.

"You said a few minutes since that you had thought me like the rest. Who did you mean by 'the rest'--women as a class--the class you go about with--or the women of the stage?"

"Well ... if you want the honest truth--I had actresses in mind when I spoke."

"You believe actresses are any worse, even as bad, as the women I met at dinner last week?"

"Um ... ye-s ... I think actresses would go farther."

"_Go farther!_"

"Yes. None of these women--at least not many of them--you've met would really go the limit. They do a good deal of playing around the edge, but it's only once in a while they get into a scrape.... Look here! I don't hold a brief for judging the relative virtues of women. I don't blame anybody for squeezing all the enjoyment they can out of life--for you don't know what's coming hereafter."

The doctor showed signs of irritation....

A sound from Boy suggested my next remark.

"Suppose one has children?"

"That's a horse of another colour.... Though when you come right down to it I don't see that a family cuts much ice. Children are for the most part accidents. They just happen. Their conception is the result of carelessness or laziness. Their ultimate arrival is accepted a good deal like a deluge or a fire; you do everything you can to stop it--to the verge of self-destruction--then you throw up your hands and accept the inevitable. There isn't one love child in a million. I mean a child of love in the sense of premeditated and welcome conception. Men and women marry for one of a half dozen reasons, most commonly because they believe they are in love. When the honeymoon wanes and you get right down to commonplace, every-day life in all its ugliness, we begin to feet that we've been buncoed. If we are truthful with ourselves we acknowledge a share of the bunco game. Way back in our subconscious mind the sensation of our courtship, the pursuit and the first mad moments of possession have stuck fast.... We fairly throb at the thought of them. We begin to hanker for a repetition of these sensuous dope-dreams.... Presently we are off hot for the chase ... and a little dash of the forbidden fruit acts as a stimulant. Like all stimulants it becomes necessary to increase the dose after a while to insure efficacy. That's where we begin to slop over...." The doctor leaned back with the air of one who is satisfied with his diagnosis.

"We are getting away from the subject," I remarked caustically.

"Not a bit of it ... we're running along converging lines. The stage is the mart for the prettiest and most magnetic of women. A pretty woman may be moral, but the chances are against it. Every man looks upon her as so much legitimate loot. They differ only in their methods of getting away with it. Sometimes they effect a legitimate sale: this is what our social system calls marriage. More often the rate of exchange is usurious on the part of the man. It varies from a bottle of wine and a few pretty clothes to a diamond necklace and equally brilliant promises.... Now here's where our lines converge. The stage is a good place to show goods. Our eternal chase bids us go in and look 'em over--and--if you are in a mood to trade--to say nothing of having the price--you'll find a bevy of ambitious beauties with a keen eye to business."

"You infer, then, that the society lady sins for love only--and that the actress bestows her affection for purely mercenary motives?"

"I don't make any such broad distinction as that--but I believe the actress has always an eye on the main chance and that she wouldn't let a little thing like love interfere with business.... The society woman, on the other hand, usually goes wrong because she's unhappily married and tries to make up for what's missing by stealing a little happiness on the side."

"Then I am to believe that the stories one reads about lovers who present other men's wives with bejewelled gold purses and other little feminine gew-gaws are wholly fictitious; pure emanations from the brain of newspaper reporters--or the French dramatist ... and from the divorce records?"

The doctor threw back his head and roared like a lion....

"Perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me under what head you classified me--being neither a love-lorn society lady nor an ambitious actress with an eye to the main chance...."

The doctor sobered to the point of anger. "I have told you that I am sorry.... I have apologized.... After all, what are we rowing about? You've proved an alibi--you're not like the rest--so let's forget it."

"I _can't_ forget it.... You are judging a whole class by a few individuals who share your perverted ideas ... individuals who would be immoral in a nunnery.... Would any of the women of your set--name any one of them--would she--_could_ she be less moral on the stage? Impossible! I don't believe you when you say none of them would 'go the limit!' Women who drink as much as they do; women whose tongues are furred with vulgar stories; women who proclaim they are '_on_ to their husbands' and that their husbands are _on_ to them and still continue to live under the same roof, occupy the same beds; women who write other women's husbands love letters and arrange places of assignation ... do you mean you do not _know_ these women 'go the limit'?" ... My indignation and resentment had swept me like a storm and left me weak and bedraggled. The doctor made no response.... I felt that he was watching me. After a while I proceeded more quietly....

"The trouble with you, doctor, is that you form your opinions from the newspapers. The man who writes the head-lines believes it is his bounden duty to accentuate any and everything pertaining to the stage. The most obscure chorus girl is 'an actress.' Every divorcee whose antics have emblazoned the hall of ill-fame expects to become an actress and the newspapers record her aspiration in large type. A police court magistrate in New York once told me that three-fourths of the women arrested on the streets for accosting men gave their occupations on the police blotter as 'actress.' Do you think any yellow sheet ever let an opportunity like that go by?... If all the petty affairs of your clients or your friends and casual acquaintances, both scandalous and innocuous, were printed from week to week, do you think there would be an appreciable difference between the standard of morality of the doctors, the dentists, the butchers and bakers and that of the actor?... I don't think you take into consideration that the actor's life is public property. He is denied the right of privacy in all matters. Nothing is too trivial, too delicately personal, to be shared with the public."

"And who's to blame for that, my lady, but the player himself? Publicity is his stock in trade. He's got to advertise, or drop out.... If ever I want a divorce, I'll dig up an actor as co-respondent: not because there may not be others, but because the actor would appreciate the advertisement." ... The doctor leaned toward me to better enjoy my discomfiture, then laughed tormentingly.

I rose to my feet; he accepted his conge lingeringly.

"Well, at any rate I've done you good; your face has got back its colour." ... He stood contemplating me for a second.

"You know ... you've got a good deal of think works under that dusky head--only don't think too much.... It's bad business for a woman of your temperament." He turned to pick up his coat. Boy had fallen asleep upon it, nestling close to the warm fur. "What a shame to disturb him--don't do it. I can do without the coat until I get home." I lifted Boy gently and carried him still asleep to the bedroom beyond. The doctor followed to the alcove and stood watching while I covered the child. Then he picked up his coat and threw it over his arm.

"I guess you're equal to holding Handsome Bill by the leading strings, all right.... Hartley's a fine chap; one of the nicest actors I ever knew, and I'm downright fond of him." ...

I could not repress a sneer in the safety of the twilight. It was not lost on the doctor.

"I know what you are thinking about," he said quietly, "but you know as well as I that where there's a woman in the case there's about as much honour among men as there is among thieves." ... He stretched out his hand. "Good-bye, little girl.... I'm glad to have had this talk with you; it's better than dodging each other and arousing suspicion. Aren't you going to shake hands?... O, well if you look at it in that light ... just the same, I'm yours to command whenever you feel the need of me." ... Exit doctor.