Part 12

We were at home, so she could escape from me. And I, for my part, was as glad to be quit of her society as she could possibly have been to get rid of me. I was beginning to realize that her conversation bored me, that it had always bored me, that it was her sex and only her sex that interested me. And latterly even this had lost its charm. Why?

I have observed--and perhaps you have observed it, too--that people of wealth and position, unless they have very striking individuality indeed, are usually utterly devoid of charm. It is difficult to become interested in them, to establish any sort of sympathetic current. And you will notice that fashionable functions are dull, essentially dull; that the animation is artificial, is supplied from without by an orchestra or entertainers, and fails to infect the company. It was long before I discovered the explanation for this. I at first thought it was the stupidity that comes from a surfeit of the luxuries and pleasures. But I am now convinced that this familiar explanation is not the true one; that the true one is the excessive, the really preposterous self-centeredness of people of rank and wealth. From waking until sleeping they are surrounded by hirelings and sycophants who think and talk only of them. Thus the rich man or woman gets into the habit of concentrating upon self. Now the essence of charm is giving--giving oneself out in sympathetic interest in one’s fellows. How can people, all whose faculties are trained to work in upon themselves--how can they have charm? An egotist, one who _talks_ only of himself, may have charm because he gives you the impression that he is trying to please you, that he thinks you so important that he wishes you to be sensible of his importance. But the egotist who, whatever he _talks_, _thinks_ only of himself--he is not only dull and bored but also a diffuser of dullness and boredom. And that is how their servants and their sycophants make the rich and the fashionable so dreary.

I imagine some such effect as this was being produced upon my wife by her surroundings of luxury. I think that may account for her long decreasing charm for me. At any rate, soon after she was well launched on her Elysian sea of fashion--that is to say, soon after she ceased to have any check of social seeking to restrain her from centering all her thoughts and actions upon herself, she lost the last bit of her charm for me. She became radiantly beautiful. Her face took on a serene and refinedly assured expression that made her extravagantly admired on every hand. She became gracious to me and almost as sweet as she had been before we moved to New York. She even let me see that, if I so desired, she would condescend to be on terms of wifely affection with me again. But I did not so desire. I liked her. I admired her energy, her toilets, and, quite impersonally, her aristocratic beauty. But I was content to be a bachelor, and I was grateful when she began to relieve me of the tediousness of going about in her train.

My substitute was an architect, Leon MacIlvane by name--a handsome young fellow of about my wife’s age, though he thought her much younger, despite Margot’s age and appearance. With his poetic dark eyes and classic features, and rich, deep voice, MacIlvane had long been a favorite with the young married women of the Armitage set. He was indeed a valuable asset. The rich unmarried men were not especially interesting; also, they were needed by the marriageable girls. MacIlvane, not a marrying man and never making any mother uneasy by so much as an interested glance at a daughter intended for a rich husband, devoted himself to married women.

“I do not care for girls,” he said to me. “They are too colorless.”

“Why bother with women at all?” said I. “Aren’t they all colorless? What do they know about life? What experience have they had?”

“An intelligent woman’s mind is the complement of an intelligent man’s mind,” said he, as if this trite old fallacy were a brilliant discovery of his own making. “Women stimulate me, give me ideas.”

“Oh, I see,” said I practically. “Business. Yes, an architect does deal chiefly with the women.”

“I didn’t mean that,” said he, showing as much anger as he dared show the husband of the woman to whom he had attached himself.

“Where’s the harm in it?” said I encouragingly. “You’ve got to make a living--haven’t you? It’s good sense for a business man to cultivate his customers.”

He, the poseur and the small man, hated this plain truthful way of dealing with his profession. Like all chaps of that kidney he thought only of himself and of appearances, and sought to degrade a noble profession to the base uses of his vanity. In fact, he had begun with my wife because of the orders he hoped to get--for, he suspected that once she looked about her in the fashionable world from the new viewpoint of a fashionable person, she would want changes in her house to make it less vividly grand. He believed she would let Hilda Armitage educate her; and Hilda, unlike most of her friends, liked the quiet kinds of ostentation and costliness. And he guessed correctly. He was well paid for undertaking to replace me as escort--so far as I could be replaced without causing scandal--and, thank heaven, that was very far in the New York of busy and bored husbands, detesting the gaudy gaddings their wives loved.

Soon he was serving my wife for other reasons than pay. I saw something of him from time to time, and I presently began to note a change in his manner toward me--a formal politeness, an exaggeration of courtesy. I spoke to Armitage about it. Armitage and I had become the most intimate of friends--knocked about together in the evenings, were more closely associated than ever in business.

“Bob,” said I to Armitage, “what ails that ass, MacIlvane? He treats me as if he were in love with my wife.”

Armitage laughed. “That’s it,” said he. “My wife’s spaniel, Courtleigh, who writes poetry, treats me the same way. Get any anonymous letters yet?”

“Two,” said I.

“Servants,” said he. “I suppose you burnt them? You didn’t show them to your wife?”

“Heavens, no,” replied I. “Why unsettle her? Why upset a pleasant arrangement? My wife finds MacIlvane useful. I find him invaluable. He saves me hours of time. He spares me hours of boredom.”

“My feeling about Courtleigh,” said Armitage. “And both those chaps are comfortably trustworthy.”

“I hadn’t thought of MacIlvane in that way,” said I. “I know my wife--and that’s enough.”

Armitage reflected with an amused smile on his face. Finally, he said: “I don’t suppose there ever were since the world began so thoroughly trustworthy women as these American women of the fashionable crowd--those that have very rich husbands--and only those, of course, are really fashionable. They may flirt a little, but never anything serious--never anything that’d give their husbands an excuse for throwing them out--and lose them their big houses and big incomes and social leadership.”

I had not thought of these aspects of the matter. I based my feeling of security solely on my knowledge of my wife’s intense self-absorption. All the springs of sentiment--except the shallow spring of highfaluting talk--had dried up in her. She would listen to MacIlvane’s flatteries as long as he cared to pour them out. But if he ever tried to get her to think of _him_, she would feel outraged.

“I suppose,” pursued Armitage, “we’d be tremendously amused if we could overhear those chaps talking to our wives about us. They don’t dare presume to the extent of mentioning our names. But they hand out generalities of roasting--how stupid most American men are, how superior the women are, what a tragic condescension for a wonderful American woman to have to live with a man who couldn’t appreciate her.”

I nodded and laughed.

“Nothing a woman loves so much--an American woman with a little miseducation befogging her mind and fooling her as to its limited extent--nothing she so dearly loves as to hear that she has a great intellect and a great soul, complex, mysterious, beyond the comprehension of the vulgar male clods about her. That’s why they like foreigners. You ought to watch those foreign chaps flatter our women--make perfect fools of them.”

But I had no desire to watch women in any circumstances. I had no active resentment against them as had Armitage. I simply wished to be let alone, to be free to pursue my ambitions and my ideas of self-development. I had ceased to feel about Margot. I was merely glad she was not a boy; for I felt that if she were a boy, I should have to assert myself and do some drastic and disagreeable--and almost certainly disastrous--disciplining in my family.

About a year and a half after my wife achieved her ambition, I began to feel that she was spiritually bearing down upon me in pursuance of some new secret plan.

During the year and a half she had been playing the fashionable social game with the strenuous enthusiasm which only a woman--I had almost said only an American woman--seems able to inject into the pursuit of objects that are of no consequences whatsoever. And, in spite of the useful MacIlvane I had been compelled to assist her far more than was to my liking. I went about enough to get a thorough insight into fashionableness--and a profound distaste for it. Of the many phases, ludicrous, repellent, despicable, pitiful, there was one that made a deep impression upon me. It amazed me to find that the “best” class of people was, if possible, more vulgarly snobbish than the class from which I had come--even than the “Brooklyn bounders.” I could not comprehend--I cannot comprehend--how those who have had the best opportunities are no more intelligent, no broader of mind than those who have had no opportunities at all. The ignorance, the narrowness of the men and women of the comfortable classes!--the laziness of their minds!--the shallow cant about literature, art and the like! Really, intelligence, activity of mind, seems confined to the few who are pushing upward; and the masses of mankind in all classes seem contented each class with its own peculiar wallow of ignorance.

But to Edna’s secret plan. If you are a married man you will at once understand what I mean when I speak of having a vague sensation of being borne down upon. She said nothing; she did nothing. But I knew she was making ready to ask something to which she believed she could get my consent only by the use of all her tact and skill and charm--for she did not know her charms had ceased to charm, but thought them more potent than ever. I waited with patience and composure; and in due time she began cautious open approaches.

“Margot is almost ready to come out,” said she.

“Money?” said I, smiling.

She rebuked this coarseness amiably. “_Everybody_ isn’t _always_ thinking of money, dear,” said she.

“But why talk to _me_ about anything else? That’s my only department in the family.”

She deigned a smile for my pleasantry, then went on in her usual serious way: “I wish to consult you about her education.”

“Oh--finish as you’ve begun,” said I. “I suppose it’s the best that can be done for a girl.”

“But I can’t find what I want,” said she, with an expression of sweet maternal solicitude. “I’ve always been determined Margot should have the best education any girl in the whole world could get.”

“Go ahead,” said I. “See that she gets it.”

“She shall have the perfect equipment of a lady--of a woman of the world,” continued Edna, with growing enthusiasm. “She has the beauty to set it off--and we can afford to give it to her. I am willing to make any sacrifices that may be necessary.”

I pricked up my ears. I always do when anyone, male or female, uses that word sacrifice. I know a piece of selfishness is coming.

“As I was saying,” pursued Edna, with the serene look of the self-confident woman who is taking her husband in firm, strong hands, “I have been unable to find what I want for her. Mrs. Armitage tells me I’ll not find it except in Paris.”

“Well--why not go to Paris?” said I.

Did you ever lift an empty box that you thought full and heavy? My wife looked as if she had just done that exceedingly uncomfortable thing. “But I don’t see-- I--I-- It would be a terrible sacrifice to have to go and live in Paris,” stammered she.

“Then don’t do it,” said I.

“But I must think of Margot!” exclaimed she hastily.

“Oh, Margot seems to be stepping along all right. She’ll never miss what she doesn’t know about.”

“But you must realize, dear, what an education she’d get in Paris. And I suppose it would do me good, too. It’s a shame that I don’t speak French. Everyone except me speaks it. They all had French governesses when they were children.”

“Some of them had--and some hadn’t,” said I. “Armitage has told me things about your friends that make me suspect they’re doing fully as much bluffing as we are.”

She winced, and sighed the sigh of the lady patient with a low husband. “Then you think I ought to go?” said she.

“I think you ought to do as you like,” said I. “I always have thought so. I always shall.”

“And,” continued she absently, “the society over there must be charming. Really, I need the education as much as Margot does. I do surprisingly well, considering what my early opportunities were.”

“I’ve never once heard you give yourself away,” said I.

“I’m not that stupid,” replied she. “But--a while in France--on the Continent--and in England perhaps----”

“How long would you be gone?” interrupted I, to show her that all this beating round Robin’s barn was superfluous.

She gave me a coquettish look: “How long could you spare me?”

“I can’t tell till I’ve tried,” said I, with a gallant smile--but with no move toward her. You women who would be wise, distrust the gallantry that is content with speech and look.

“You understand,” pursued she, “if I started this thing I’d put it through--no matter how much I missed you or how homesick I was over there.”

“You always do put things through,” said I admiringly. “When have you planned to start?”

“I haven’t planned at all, as yet,” replied she--and I saw she thought I had set a trap for her, and was delighted with herself for having dodged it. Certainly never was there a husband with whom indirection was more unnecessary. Yet she would not realize this, partly because she had never bothered to discover what manner of man I was, partly because she had one of those natures that move only by secrecy and indirection.

“Do you expect me to go over with you?” inquired I.

“I only wish you would!” exclaimed she, but I distrusted her enthusiasm.

“Couldn’t MacIlvane take you over and settle you?”

Her face clouded. Her lip curled slightly. “I don’t like him as I did,” said she. “I’ve found out he’s ridiculously vain and egotistical.”

I laughed outright.

“What is it?” inquired she, elevating her eyebrows. She had always disapproved my sense of humor.

“So he’s been making love to you--eh?” said I.

“No, indeed!” cried she, bridling haughtily. “He’d not dare. But I saw he was beginning to presume in that direction, and I checked him.”

“Oh, he’s harmless,” said I. “Keep friendly with him. He’d be the very person to settle you in Paris. He lived there several years.”

“It would cause scandal,” said she. “If you can’t go, I can do well enough alone, I’m sure.”

“I’d only be in the way,” said I. “Let me know when you wish to go, and I’ll try to arrange it. But I can’t get away for at least three months.”

“That would be too late,” said she. “Margot must be started at once. She hasn’t any too much time before her coming out. Also, Mrs. Armitage is sailing in two weeks, and she would be a great help.”

“Then you have decided to sail in two weeks?” said I, adding before she had time to get beyond a gathering frown of protest, “That suits me. I’ll make my own plans accordingly.”

And in two weeks they sailed, I watching the big ship creep out of dock and drop slowly down the river. Armitage and I drove away from the pier together. We were in such high spirits that we had champagne with our lunch.

VI

Armitage and I were together every day. He attracted me for the usual reason of congeniality, and also because he was giving me a liberal education. I have never cared for books or, with two or three exceptions, for book men. About both there is for me an atmosphere of staleness, of tedium. I prefer to get what is in the few worth-while books through the medium of some clear and original mind--such a mind as Armitage had. He ought to have been a great man. No, he was a great man; what I mean to say is that his talents ought to have won his greatness recognition. He did not lack capacity or energy; he showed a high degree of both in the management and increase of his fortune. He lacked that species of vanity, I guess it is, which spurs a man to make himself conspicuous. Also he had a kind of laziness, and chose to be active only in the way that was easiest and most agreeable for him--the making of money.

His father had been rich, and his grandfather; his great grandfather had been one of the richest men in Revolutionary times. His father was regarded as a crank because he had imagination, and therefore despised the conventional ideas of his own generation; to be regarded as thoroughly sane and sensible, you must be careful to be neither, but to pattern yourself painstakingly upon the particular form of feeble-mindedness and conventional silliness current in your time. Armitage’s father resolved that his son should not have his individuality clipped and moulded and patterned by college and caste into the familiar type of upper-class man. So Armitage went to public school, graduated from it into a factory, then into an office, himself earned the money to carry out the ambitions for study and travel with which his father had inspired him.

I think there was nothing worth the knowing about which Armitage had not accurate essential information--books, plays, pictures, music, literature, history, economics, science, medicine, law, finance. He was a good shot and a good horseman, could run an automobile, take it to pieces, put it together again. He was a practical mechanic and a practical railroad man. He had a successful model farm. “It doesn’t take long to learn the essentials about anything,” said he, “if you will only put your whole mind on it and not let up till you’ve got what you want. And the trouble with most people--why, they are narrow and ignorant and incompetent--it isn’t lack of mind, but lack of interest. They have no curiosity.” Nor was my friend Armitage a smatterer. He didn’t try to _do_ everything; he contented himself with knowledge, and _did_ only one thing--made money out of railroads.

When he saw that I really wished to be educated, he amused himself by educating me. Not in a formal way, of course; but simply talking along, about whatever happened to come up. I have never known a man to get anywhere, who did not have an excellent memory. Lack of memory--which means lack of the habit and power of giving attention--is the cause of more failures than all other defects put together. If you don’t believe it, test the failures you know; perhaps you might even test your own not too successful self. I had an unusual memory; and I don’t think Armitage or anyone ever told me anything worth knowing that I did not stick to it and keep it where I could use it instantly.

Several months after his wife and mine departed, we were walking in the park one afternoon--the usual tramp round the upper reservoir to reduce or to keep in condition. He said in the most casual way:

“My wife is coming next week, and will get her divorce at once.”

Taking my cue from his manner I showed even less surprise then I felt. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said I.

“Really?” said he carelessly. “Everyone knows.” He laughed to himself. “She is to marry Lord Blankenship--the Earl of Blankenship.”

“And the children?” said I.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Her people will look after them. She has spoiled them beyond repair. I have no interest in them--nor they in me.” After a little tramping in silence, he halted and rested his hands on the railing and looked away across the lakelike reservoir, its surface tossed up into white caps by the wind. “I loved her when we were married,” said he. “That caused all the mischief. I let her do as she pleased. She was a fine girl--good family but poor. She pretended to be in sympathy with my ideas.” His lip curled in good-humored contempt. “I believed in her enthusiasm. My father--wonderfully sane old man--warned me she was only after our money, but I wouldn’t listen. Tried to quarrel with him. He wouldn’t have it--gave me my way. It’s not strange I believed in her. She looked all that’s high-minded--and delicate--and what they call aristocratic. Well, it _is_ aristocratic--the reality of aristocracy.”

“Perhaps she was sincere,” said I, out of the depths of my own experience, “perhaps she honestly imagined she liked and wanted the sort of life you pictured. We are all hypocrites, but most of us are unconscious hypocrites.”

“No doubt she did deceive herself--in part at least,” he admitted. “For a year or so after our marriage she kept up the bluff. I didn’t catch on--didn’t find her out--until we began to differ about bringing up the children. Even then, I loved her so that I let her have her way until it was too late.”

“But,” said I, “don’t you owe it to them to----”

He interrupted with an impatient, “Didn’t I try? But it was hopeless. To succeed in this day, I’d have had to take the children away off into the woods, with the chances that even there the servants I’d be compelled to have would spoil them--would keep them reminded of the rotten snobbishness they’ve been taught.” He laughed at me with mocking irony. “You have a daughter,” said he. “What about her?”

“I was thinking of your boy,” said I.

He frowned and looked away. After a long pause--“Hopeless--hopeless,” said he. “Believe me--hopeless. The boy is like her. No, I’ll have to begin all over again.”

I gave an inquiring look.

“Marry again,” explained he. “Another sort of woman, and keep her and her children away from this world of ours. I’d like to try the experiment. But--” He laughed apologetically. “I’m afraid I love the city and its amusements too well. I’m not as determined nor as ardent as I once was. What does it matter, anyway? So long as we are comfortable and well amused, why should we bother?” After a silence, “Another mistake I made--the initial mistake--was in giving her a fortune. She is almost as well fixed as I am. Don’t make that mistake, Godfrey.”

“I’ve already done it,” said I. “And I shall never be sorry that I did. I gave my wife the first large sum I made, and I’ve added to it from time to time. I wanted her and Margot to be safe, no matter what happened to me.”

“A mistake,” he said. “A sad mistake. I know how you felt. I felt the same way. But there’s something worse than the more or less sentimental aversion to being loved and considered merely for the money they can get out of you and can’t get without you.”

“Nothing worse,” I declared.

“Yes,” he replied. “It’s worse to give a foolish woman the power to make a fool of herself, of her children, and of you.”

“That is bad, I’ll admit,” said I. “But the other is worse--at least to me.”

“You’d refuse to make a child behave itself, through the selfish fear that it would hate you for doing so.”

I laughed. “You know my weakness, I see,” said I.

“There’s the foolish American husband and father. No wonder all the classes that ought to be leaders in development and civilization are leaders only in luxury and folly.”

“Oh, let them have a good time--what they call a good time,” said I. “As you said a moment ago, it doesn’t matter.”