Part 15

"Do but one thing!" he said, with a vehemence all the more startling because of his usual unvaried composure. "Break away from this folly once and forever! You know that I love you--that I have loved you for years! Don't tell me that you don't know it, for at the best you've only taught yourself to forget it! I've never _said_ that I loved you before, but what of that? You have seen the truth a hundred times--in my sober way of showing it! I've never thought that you returned the feeling; I don't even fancy so now. But I'm so fond of you, Pauline, that I want you to be my wife, merely liking and respecting me. I hate to shame myself by even speaking of your money, but you can sign that all away to some hospital to-morrow, if you please--you can get it all together and throw it into the North River, as far as I am concerned! Send Kindelon adrift--jilt him! On my soul I beg this of you for your own future happiness more than anything else! I don't say that it will be a square or right thing to do. But it will save you from the second horrible mistake of your life! You made one, that death saved you from. But this will be worse. It will last your lifetime. Kindelon isn't of your _monde_, and never can be. There is so much in that. I am not speaking like a snob. But he has no more sense of the proprieties, the nice externals, the way of doing all those thousand trifling things, which, trifling as they are, make up three-quarters of actual existence, than if he were an Indian, a Bedouin, or a gypsy! Before Heaven, Pauline, if I thought such a marriage could bring you happiness, I'd give you up without a murmur! I'm not fool enough to die, or pine, or even mope because of any woman on the globe not caring for me! But now, by giving me the right to guard you--by making me so grateful to you that only the rest of my life can fitly show my gratitude, you will escape calamity, distress, and years of remorse!"

It had hardly seemed to her, at first, as if Courtlandt were really speaking; this intensity was so entirely uncharacteristic of him; these rapid tones and spirited glances were so remote from his accustomed personality. Yet by degrees she recognized not alone the quality of the change, but its motive and source. She could not but feel tenderly toward him then. She was a woman, and he had told her that he loved her; this bore its inevitable condoning results.

And yet her voice was almost stern as she now said to him, rising, and repelling the hand by which he still strove to clasp her own,--

"I think you admitted that if I broke my engagement with Ralph Kindelon it would not be--I use your own words, Court--the square or right thing to do.... Well, I shall not do it! There, I hope you are satisfied."

He looked at her with a surpassing pain. His hands, while they hung at his sides, knotted themselves. "Oh, Pauline," he exclaimed, "I am _not_ satisfied!"

She met his look steadily. The tears in her eyes had vanished, though those already shed glistened on her cheeks. "Very well. I am sorry. I love Ralph Kindelon. I mean to be his wife."

"You meant to be Varick's wife."

"It is horrible for you to bring that up!" she cried. "Here I commit no mistake. He is a man of men! He loves me, and I love him. Do you know anything against him--outside of the codes and creeds that would exclude him from one of Aunt Cynthia's dancing-classes?"

"I know this against him; he is not true. He is not to be trusted. He rings wrong. He is not a gentleman--in the sense quite outside of Aunt Cynthia's definition."

"It is false!" exclaimed Pauline, crimsoning. "Prove to me," she went on, with fleet fire, "that he is not true--not to be trusted. I dare you to prove it."

He walked slowly toward the door. "It is an intuition," he said. "I can't prove it. I could as soon tell you who wrote that villainous thing in the newspaper there."

Pauline gave a laugh of coldest contempt. "Oh," she cried, "in a moment more you will be saying that _he_ wrote it!"

Courtlandt shook his head. The gesture conveyed, in some way, an excessive and signal sadness.

"In a moment more," he answered, "I shall be saying nothing to you. And I don't know that I shall ever willingly come into your presence again. Good-by."

Pauline gave no answer, sinking back into her seat as he disappeared.

Her eye lighted upon the fallen newspaper while she did so. Its half-crumpled folds made her forget that her cousin was departing. She suddenly sprang up again, and caught the sheet from the floor. A fire was blazing near by. She hurried toward the grate, intending to destroy the printed abomination.

But, pausing half-way, she once more burst into tears. A recollection cut her to the heart of how futile would be any attempt, now, to destroy the atrocious wrong itself. That must live and work its unmerited ill.

"And to this dark ending," she thought, with untold dejection, "has come my perfectly honest ambition--my fair and proper and wholesome plan!" And then, abruptly, her tearful eyes began to sparkle, while a bright, mirthless smile touched her lips.

"But I can at least have my retort," she decided. "_He_ will help me--stand by me in this miserable emergency. I will send for him,--yes, I will send for Ralph at once! He will do just as I dictate, and I know what I _shall_ dictate! Miss Cragge wrote that base screed, and Miss Cragge shall suffer accordingly!"

XIV.

She sent for Kindelon at once, but before her message could possibly have reached the office of the "Asteroid," he presented himself.

He had recently seen the article, and told her so with a lover-like tenderness that she found balsamic, if not precisely curative.

"It is fiendish," he at length said, "and if I thought any man had done it I would thrash him into confessing so. But I am nearly sure that a woman did it."

"Miss Cragge?"

"Yes."

"You can't thrash her, Ralph. But you can punish her."

"How?"

"Through your own journal--the 'Asteroid.' You can show the world just what a virago she is."

"No," he replied, after a reflective pause, "that can't be."

"Can't be!" exclaimed Pauline, almost hysterically reproachful. "The 'Asteroid' can call the 'Herald,' the 'Times' and the 'Tribune' every possible bad name; it can fly at the throats of politicians whom it doesn't indorse; it can seethe and hiss like a witch's caldron in editorials about some recent regretted measure at Albany! But when I ask it to defend me against slanderous ridicule it refuses--it"--

"Ah," cried Kindelon, interrupting her, "it refuses because it is powerless to defend you."

"Powerless!"

"_Qui s'excuse s'accuse._ Any attempted vindication would be merely to direct the public eye still more closely upon this matter. All evil things hold within themselves the germ of their own destruction. Let this villainy die a natural death, Pauline; to fight it will be to perpetuate its power. In the meanwhile I can probably gain a clue to its authorship. But I do not promise, mind. No, I do not promise!"

"And this is all!" faltered Pauline. "Oh, Ralph, according to your argument, every known wrong should be endured because of the notoriety which attaches to the redressing of it."

He looked very troubled and very compassionate as he answered her. "The notoriety is in many cases of no importance, my love. If I were coarsely assailed, for instance, I should not hesitate to openly confront my assailant. But with a pure woman it is different; and with _some_ pure women--yourself I quote as a most shining example of these latter--it is unspeakably different! The chastity of some names is so perfect that any touch whatever will soil it."

"If so, then mine has been soiled already!" cried Pauline. "Oh," she went on, "you men are all alike toward us women! Our worst crime is that you yourselves should talk about us! To have your fellow-men say, 'This woman has been rendered the object of a scandalous insult, but has retaliated with courage,' is to make her seem in your eyes as if the insult were really a deserved one! Whenever we are prominent, except in a social way, we are called notorious. If our husbands are drunkards or brutes who abuse us, and we fly to the refuge of the divorce-court, we are notorious. If we go on the stage, no matter how well we may guard our honest womanhood there, we are notorious. If we turn ministers, doctors, lecturers, philanthropists, political agitators, it is all the same; we are observed, discussed, criticised; hence we are notorious. Now, I've never rebelled against this finely just system, though like nearly all other yoked human beings I have indulged certain private views upon my own bondage. And in my case it was hardly a bondage.... Except for certain years where discontent was in a large measure remorse, I have been lifted by exceptional circumstance above those pangs and torments which I have felt certain must have beset many another woman through no act of her own. But now an occasion suddenly dawns when I find myself demanding a man's full justice. To tell me that I can't get it because I am a woman is no answer whatever. I want it, all the same."

Kindelon gazed at her with a sort of woe-begone amazement. "I don't tell you that you can't get it, as far as it is to be had," he almost groaned. "I merely remind you that this is the nineteenth century, and neither the twentieth nor the twenty-first."

Pauline gave a fierce little motion of her shapely head. "I am reminded of that nearly every day that I live," she retorted. "You fall back, of course, upon public opinion. All of you always do, where a woman is concerned, whenever you are cornered. And it is so easy to corner you--to make you swing at us this cudgel of 'domestic retirement' and 'feminine modesty.' I once talked for two hours in Paris with one of the strongest French radical thinkers of modern times. For the first hour and a half he delighted me; he spoke of the immense things that modern scientific developments were doing for the human race. For the last half-hour he disgusted me. And why? I discovered that his 'human race' meant a race entirely masculine. He left woman out of the question altogether. She might get along the best way she could. When he spoke of his own sex he was superbly broad; when he spoke of ours he was narrower than any Mohammedan with a harem full of wives and a prospective Paradise full of subservient houris."

Kindelon rose and began to pace the floor, with his hands clasped behind him. "Well," he said, in a tone of mild distraction, "I'm very sorry for your famous French thinker. I hope you don't want me to tell you that I sympathize with him."

"I'm half inclined to believe it!" sped Pauline. "If my cousin Courtlandt had spoken as you have done, I should have accepted such ideas as perfectly natural. Courtlandt is the incarnation of conventionalism. He is part of the rush in our social wheelwork, and yet he makes it move more slowly. He could no more pull up his window-shades and let in fresh sunshine than you could close your shutters and live in his decorous _demijour_!"

Kindelon still continued his impatient pacing. "I'm very glad of your favorable comparison," he said, with more sadness than satire. He abruptly paused, then, facing Pauline. "What is it, in Heaven's name, that you want me to do?"

"You should not ask; you should know!" she exclaimed. Her clear-glistening eyes, her flushed cheeks, and the assertive, almost imperious posture of her delicate figure made her seem to him a rarely beautiful vision as he now watched her. "Reflect, pray reflect," she quickly proceeded, "upon the position in which I now stand! I attempted to do what if I had been a much better woman than I am it would not at all have been a blameworthy thing to do. The result was failure; it was failure through no fault of my own. I found myself in a clique of wrangling egotists, and not in a body of sensible co-operative supporters. Chief among these was Miss Cragge, whose repulsive traits I foresaw--or rather you aided me to foresee them. I omitted her from my banquet (very naturally and properly, I maintain), and this is the apple of discord that she has thrown." Here Pauline pointed to the fatal newspaper, which lay not far off. "Of course," she went on, with a very searching look at Kindelon, "there can be no doubt that Miss Cragge _is_ the offender! I, for my part, am certain of it; you, for yours, are certain as well, unless I greatly err. But this makes your refusal to publicly chastise her insolence all the more culpable!"

"Culpable!" he echoed, hurrying toward her. "Pauline! you don't know what you are saying! Have I the least pity, the least compunction toward that woman?"

Pauline closed her eyes for an instant, and shook her head, with a repulsing gesture of one hand. "Then you have a very false pity toward another woman--and a very false compunction as well," she answered.

"How can I _act_, situated as I am?" he cried, with sharp excitement. "You have not yet allowed our engagement to transpire. What visible or conceded rights _have_ I to be your defender?"

"You are unjust," she said. "I give you every right. That article insinuates that I am a sort of high-bred yet low-toned adventuress. No _lady_ could feel anything but shame and indignation at it. Besides, it incessantly couples your name with mine.... And as for right to be my champion in exposing and rebuking this outrage, I--I give you every right, as I said."

"I desire but one," returned Kindelon. His voice betrayed no further perturbation. He seated himself at her side, and almost by force took both her hands in the strong grasp of both his own.

"What right?" she questioned. Her mood of accusation, of reproach, was not yet quieted; her eyes still sparkled from it; her restless lips still betrayed it.

"The right," he answered, "of calling you my wife. As it is, what am I? A man far below you in all worldly place, who has gained from you a matrimonial promise. Marry me!--marry me at once!--to-morrow!--and everything will be different! Then you shall have become mine to defend, and I will show you how I can defend what is my own!"

"To-morrow!" murmured Pauline.

"Yes, to-morrow! You will say it is too soon. You will urge conventionalism now, though a minute ago you accused _me_ of urging it! When you are once my wife I shall feel empowered to lawfully befriend you!"

"Lawfully!" she repeated. "Can you not do so manfully, as it is?"

"No--not without the interfering claims and assertions of your family!"

"I _have_ no real family. And those whom you call such are without the right of either claim or assertion, as regards any question of what I choose or do not choose to do!"

He still retained her hands; he put his lips against her cheek; he would not let her withdraw, though she made a kind of aggrieved effort to do so.

"They have no rights, Pauline, and yet they would overwhelm me with obloquy! As your husband--once as your wedded, chosen husband, what should I care for them all? I would laugh at them! Make it to-morrow! Then see how I will play my wife's part, and fight her battle!..."

They talked for some time after this in lowered tones.... Pauline was in a wholly new mood when she at length said,--

"To-morrow, then, if you choose."

"You mean it? You promise it?"

"I mean it--and I promise it, since you seem so doubtful."

"I am doubtful," he exclaimed, kissing her, "because I can scarcely dream that this sudden happiness has fallen to me from the stars!..."

When he had left her, and she was quite alone, Pauline found her lips murmuring over the words, in a sort of mechanical repetition: "I have promised to marry him to-morrow."

She had indeed made this vow, and as a very sacred one. And the more that she reflected upon it the more thoroughly praiseworthy a course it seemed. Her nearest living relations were the Poughkeepsies and Courtlandt. She had quarrelled with both--or it meant nearly the same thing. There was no one left to consult. Besides, even if there had been, why should she consult any third party in this affair, momentous though it was? She loved; she was beloved. She was a widow with a great personal, worldly independence. She had already been assailed; what mattered a little more assailance? For most of those who would gossip and sneer she had a profound and durable contempt.... Why, then, should she regret her spoken word?

And yet she found herself not so much regretting it as fearing lest she might regret it. She suddenly felt the need, and in keenest way, of a near confidential, trustworthy friend. But her long residence abroad had acted alienatingly enough toward all earlier American friendships. She could think of twenty women--married, or widows like herself--who would have received her solicited counsel with every apparent sign of sympathy. But with all these she had lost the old intimate sense; new ground must be broken in dealing with them; their views and creeds were what her own had been when she had known and prattled platitudes with them before her dolorous marriage: or at least she so chose to think, so chose to decide.

"There is one whom I could seek, and with whom I could seriously discuss the advisability of such a speedy marriage," at length ran Pauline's reflections. "That one is Mrs. Dares. Her large, sweet, just mind would be quite equal to telling me if I am really wrong or right.... Still, there is an obstacle--her daughter, Cora. Yet that would make no difference with Mrs. Dares. She would be above even a maternal prejudice. She is all gentle equity and disinterested kindliness. I might see her alone--quite alone--this evening. Neither Cora nor the sister, Martha, need know anything. I would pledge her to secrecy before I spoke a word ... I will go to her! I will go to Mrs. Dares, and will ask her just what I ought to do."

This resolve strengthened with Pauline after she had once made it. The hour was now somewhat late in the afternoon. She distrusted the time of Mrs. Dares's arrival up-town from her work, and decided that the visit had best be paid at about seven o'clock that same evening.

A little later she was amazed to receive the card of Mr. Barrowe. She went into her reception-room to see this gentleman, with mingled amusement and awkwardness; she was so ignorant what fatality had landed him within her dwelling.

"I scarcely know how to greet you, Mr. Barrowe," she said, after giving a hand to her guest. "You and I parted by no means peacefully last night, and I--I am (yes, I confess it!) somewhat unprepared...."

At this point Mr. Barrowe made voluble interruption. His little twinkling eyes looked smaller and acuter than before, and his gaunt, spheroidal nose had an unusual pallor as it rose from his somewhat depressed cheeks.

"You needn't say _you_ are unprepared, Mrs. Varick!" he exclaimed. "I am unprepared myself. I had no idea of visiting you this afternoon. I had no idea that you would again give me the pleasure of receiving me. Handicapped as I am, myself, by visits, letters, applications, mercantile matters, I have insisted, however, on getting rid of all--yes, _all_ trammels."

Here Mr. Barrowe paused, and Pauline gently inclined her head, saying,--

"That is very good of you. Pray proceed."

"Proceed!" cried Mr. Barrowe. He had already seated himself, but he now rose, approached Pauline, took her hand, and with an extravagant gallantry which his lank body caused closely to verge upon the ludicrous, lifted this hand ceremoniously to his pale lips. Immediately afterward he resumed his seat. And at once he recommenced speaking.

"I feel that I--I owe you the most profound of apologies," he declared, with a hesitation that seemed to have a sincere emotional origin. "Handicapped as I am by a hundred other matters, besieged as I am by bores who want my autograph, by people who desire me to write for this or that journal, by people who desire consultation with me on countless literary or even commercial subjects, I nevertheless have felt it a question of conscience to pay you this visit."

"A question of conscience?" said Pauline, suavely.

"Yes, Mrs. Varick. I--I have seen that stringently objectionable article in the ... ahem ... the 'Morning Monitor.' May I ask if you also have seen it? And pray be sure that when I thus ask I feel confident you _must_ have seen it, since bad tidings travel quickly, and..."

"Yes, Mr. Barrowe, I have seen it," said Pauline, interrupting another thin, diplomatic sort of cough on the part of her visitor. "And I should be glad if you could tell me what devoted foe wrote it."

Mr. Barrowe now trembled with eagerness. "I--I _can_ tell you!" he exclaimed. "It--it was that unhappy Miss Cragge! I had no sooner read it, in my office this morning, than I was attacked by a conviction--an absolute conviction--that _she_ wrote it. Handicapped, besieged as I am ... but let that pass...."

"Yes--let that pass," softly cried Pauline, meaning no discourtesy, yet bent upon reaching the bare fact and proof. "You say that you are sure that Miss Cragge wrote the article?"

"Positively certain," asseverated Mr. Barrowe. "I went to the lady at once. I found her at her desk in the office of--well, let us not mind _what_ newspaper. I upbraided her with having written it! I was very presumptuous, perhaps--very dictatorial, but I did not care. I had stood up for the lady, not many evenings ago, at the risk of your displeasure."

"The _lady_!" repeated Pauline, half under her breath, and with a distinct sneer. "Go on, please, Mr. Barrowe. Did Miss Cragge confess?"

"Miss Cragge _did_ not confess. But she showed such a defiant tendency _not_ to confess--she treated me with such an overbearing pugnaciousness and disdain, that before I had been five minutes in her society I had no doubts whatever as to the real authorship of the shocking article. And now, Mrs. Varick, I wish to offer you my most humble and deferential apologies. I wish to tell you how deeply and sincerely sorry I am for ever having entered into the least controversy with you regarding that most aggressive and venomous female! For, my dear madam, besieged and handicapped though I may be by countless..."

"Don't offer me a word of apology, Mr. Barrowe!" here struck in Pauline, jumping up from her seat and seizing the hand of her guest. "It is quite needless! I owe you more than you owe me! You have told me the name of my enemy, of which I was nearly certain all along." And here Pauline gave the gentleman's bony and cadaverous face one of those glances which those who liked her best thought the most charming.

"I had been told," she went on, with a very winning intonation, "that you have a large, warm heart!"

"Who--who told you that?" murmured Mr. Barrowe, evidently under the spell of his hostess's beauty and grace.

"Mr. Kindelon," Pauline said, gently.

"Kindelon!" exclaimed Mr. Barrowe, "why he is my worst enemy, as--as I fear, my dear madam, that Miss Cragge is yours!"

"Oh, never mind Miss Cragge," said Pauline, with a sweet, quick laugh; "and never mind Mr. Kindelon, either. I have only to talk about _you_, Mr. Barrowe, and to tell you that I have never yet met a good, true man (for I am certain that you are such) who stood in his own light so persistently as you do. You have an immense talent for quarrelling," she went on, with pretty seriousness. "Neglect it--crush it down--be yourself! Yourself is a very honest and agreeable self to be. I am always on the side of people with good intentions, and I am sure that yours are of the best. A really bitter-hearted man ruffles people, and so do you. But your motives for it are as different from his as malice is different from dyspepsia. I am sure you are going to reform from this hour."

"Reform?" echoed Mr. Barrowe.