Chapter 8

That word free did not have its full meaning for her. She had never known what real freedom was; women of the comfortable class--and men, too, for that matter--usually are born into the petty slavery of conventions at least, and know nothing else their whole lives through--never know the joy of the thought and the act of a free mind and a free heart. Still, she was released from a bondage that seemed slavish even to her, and the release gave her a sensation akin to the joy of freedom. A heavy hand that was crushing her very soul had been lifted off--no, FLUNG off, and by herself. That thought, terrifying though it was, also gave her a certain new and exalting self-respect. After all, she was not a worm. She must have somewhere in her the germs of something less contemptible than the essential character of so many of the eminently respectable women she knew. She could picture them in the situation in which she had found herself. What would they have done? Why, what every instinct of her education impelled her to do; what some latent love of freedom, some unsuspected courage of self-respect had forbidden her to do, had withheld her from doing.

Her thoughts and the gorgeous sunshine and her youth and health put her in a steadily less cheerless mood as by a roundabout way she sought the shop of the jeweler who sold the general the gold bag she had selected. The proprietor himself was in the front part of the shop and received "Madame la Generale" with all the honors of her husband's wealth. She brought no experience and no natural trading talent to the enterprise she was about to undertake; so she went directly to the main point.

"This bag," said she, laying it upon the glass between them, "I bought it here a short time ago."

"I remember perfectly, madame. It is the handsomest, the most artistic, we have sold this year."

"I wish to sell it back to you," said she.

"You wish to get something else and include it as part payment, madame?"

"No, I wish to get the money for it."

"Ah, but that is difficult. We do not often make those arrangements. Second-hand articles--"

"But the bag is quite new. Anyhow, it must have some value. Of course I'd not expect the full price."

The jeweler smiled. "The full price? Ah, madame, we should not think of offering it again as it is. We should--"

"No matter," interrupted Mildred. The man's expression--the normally pleasant and agreeable countenance turned to repulsive by craft and lying--made her eager to be gone. "What is the most you will give me?"

"I shall have to consider--"

"I've only a few minutes. Please do not irritate me."

The man was studying her countenance with a desperate look. Why was she, the bride of the monstrously rich American, why was she trying to sell the bag? Did it mean the end of her resources? Or, were there still huge orders to be got from her? His shrewdness, trained by thirty years of dealing with all kinds of luxurious human beings, went exploring in vain. He was alarmed by her frown. He began hesitatingly:

"The jewels and the gold are only a small part of the value. The chief value is the unique design, so elegant yet so simple. For the jewels and the gold, perhaps two thousand francs--"

"The purse was twelve thousand francs," interrupted she.

"Perfectly, madame. But--" "I am in great haste. How much will you give me?"

"The most would be four thousand, I fear. I shall count up more carefully, if madame will--"

"No, four thousand will do."

"I will send the money to madame at her hotel. The Continental, is it not?"

"No, I must have it at once."

The jeweler hesitated. Mildred, flushing scarlet with shame--but he luckily thought it anger--took up the bag and moved toward the door.

"Pardon, madame, but certainly. Do you wish some gold or all notes?"

"Notes," answered she. "Fifty and hundred-franc notes."

A moment later she was in the street with the notes in a small bundle in the bosom of her wrap. She went hurriedly up the street. As she was about to turn the corner into the boulevard she on impulse glanced back. An automobile had just drawn up at the jeweler's door and General Siddall--top-hat, sable-lined overcoat, waxed mustache and imperial, high-heeled boots, gold-mounted cane--was descending. And she knew that he had awakened to his one oversight, and was on his way to repair it. But she did not know that the jeweler--old and wise in human ways--would hastily vanish with the bag and that an assistant would come forward with assurances that madame had not been in the shop and that, if she should come in, no business would be negotiated without the general's express consent. She all but fainted at the narrowness of her escape and fled round into the boulevard. She entered a taxi and told the man to drive to Foyot's restaurant on the left bank--where the general would never think of looking for her.

When she had breakfasted she strolled in the Luxembourg Gardens, in even better humor with herself and with the world. There was still that horrid-faced future, but it was not leering into her very face. It was nearly four thousand francs away--"and if I hadn't been so stupid, I'd have got eight thousand, I'm sure," she said. But she was rather proud of a stupidity about money matters. And four thousand francs, eight hundred dollars--that was quite a good sum.

She had an instinct that the general would do something disagreeable about the French and English ports of departure for America. But perhaps he would not think of the Italian ports. That night she set out for Genoa, and three days later, in a different dress and with her hair done as she never wore it, sailed as Miss Mary Stevens for America on a German Mediterranean boat.

She had taken the whole of a cabin on the quieter deck below the promenade, paying for it nearly half of what was left of the four thousand francs. The first three days she kept to her cabin except at the dinner-hour, when she ventured to the deck just outside and walked up and down for exercise. Then followed four days of nasty weather during which she did not leave her bed. As the sea calmed, she, wretched and reckless, had a chair put for herself under her window and sat there, veiled and swathed and turning her face away whenever a rare wandering passenger happened to pass along. Toward noon a man paused before her to light a cigarette. She, forgetting for the moment her precautions, looked at him. It chanced that he looked at her at exactly the same instant. Their glances met. He started nervously, moved on a few steps, returned. Said she mockingly:

"You know you needn't speak if you don't want to, Stanley."

"There isn't a soul on board that anybody ever knew or that ever knew anybody," said he. "So why not?"

"And you look horribly bored."

"Unspeakably," replied Baird. "I've spoken to no one since I left Paris."

"What are you doing on this ship?" inquired she.

"To be perfectly honest," said he, "I came this way to avoid you. I was afraid you'd take passage on my steamer just to amuse yourself with my nervousness. And--here you are!"

"Amusing myself with your nervousness."

"But I'm not nervous. There's no danger. Will you let me have a chair put beside yours?"

"It will be a charity on your part," said she.

When he was comfortably settled, he explained his uneasiness. "I see I've got to tell you," said he, "for I don't want you to think me a shouting ass. The fact is my wife wants to get a divorce from me and to soak me for big alimony. She's a woman who'll do anything to gain her end, and--well, for some reason she's always been jealous of you. I didn't care to get into trouble, or to get you into trouble."

"I'm traveling as Mary Stevens," said Mildred. "No one knows I'm aboard."

"Oh, I'm sure we're quite safe. We can enjoy the rest of this voyage."

A sea voyage not merely induces but compels a feeling of absolute detachment from the world. To both Stanley and Mildred their affairs--the difficulties in which they were involved on terra firma--ceased for the time to have any reality. The universe was nothing but a vast stretch of water under a vast stretch of sky; the earth and the things thereof were a retrospect and a foreboding. Without analyzing it, both he and she felt that they were free--free from cares, from responsibilities--free to amuse themselves. And they proceeded to enjoy themselves in the necessarily quiet and limited way imposed by the littleness of their present world and the meagerness of the resources.

As neither had the kind of mind that expands in abstractions, they were soon talking in the most intimate and personal way about themselves--were confessing things which neither would have breathed to anyone on land. It was the man who set the example of breaking through the barriers of conventional restraint--perhaps of delicacy, though it must be said that human beings are rarely so fine in their reticences as the theory of refinement would have us believe. Said Stanley, after the preliminaries of partial confidence and halting avowal that could not be omitted, even at sea, by a man of "gentlemanly instinct":

"I don't know why I shouldn't own up. I know you'll never tell anybody. Fact is, I and my wife were never in love with each other for a second. We married because we were in the same set and because our incomes together gave us enough to do the thing rather well." After a solemn pause. "I was in love with another woman--one I couldn't marry. But I'll not go into that. As for my wife, I don't think she was in love with anyone. She's as cold as a stone."

Mildred smiled ironically.

Baird saw and flushed. "At least, she was to me. I was ready to make a sort of bluff. You see, a man feels guilty in those circumstances and doesn't want to humiliate a woman. But she--" he laughed unpleasantly--"she wasn't bothering about MY feelings. That's a nice, selfish little way you ladies have."

"She probably saw through you and hated you for playing the hypocrite to her," said Mildred.

"You may be right, I never thought of that," confessed he. "She certainly had a vicious way of hammering the other woman indirectly. Not that she ever admitted being jealous. I guess she knew. Everybody usually knows everything."

"And there was a great deal of talk about you and me," said Mildred placidly.

"I didn't say it was you," protested Stanley, reddening.

"No matter," said Mildred. "Don't bother about that. It's all past and gone."

"Well, at any rate, my marriage was the mistake of my life. I'm determined that she shan't trip me up and trim me for any alimony. And as matters stand, she can't. She left me of her own accord."

"Then," said Mildred thoughtfully, "if the wife leaves of her own accord, she can't get alimony?"

"Certainly not--not a cent."

"I supposed so," said she. "I'm not sure I'd take it if I could get it. Still, I suppose I would." She laughed. "What's the use of being a hypocrite with oneself? I know I would. All I could get."

"Then you had no LEGAL excuse for leaving?"

"No," said she. "I--just bolted. I don't know what's to become of me. I seem not to care, at present, but no doubt I shall as soon as we see land again."

"You'll go back to him," said Stanley.

"No," replied she, without emphasis or any accent whatever.

"Sure you will," rejoined he. "It's your living. What else can you do?"

"That's what I must find out. Surely there's something else for a woman besides such a married life as mine. I can't and won't go back to my husband. And I can't and won't go to the house at Hanging Rock. Those two things are settled."

"You mean that?"

"Absolutely. And I've got--less than three hundred and fifty dollars in the whole world."

Baird was silent. He was roused from his abstraction by gradual consciousness of an ironical smile on the face of the girl, for she did not look like a married woman. "You are laughing at me. Why?" inquired he.

"I was reading your thoughts."

"You think you've frightened me?"

"Naturally. Isn't a confession such as I made enough to frighten a man? It sounded as though I were getting ready to ask alms."

"So it did," said he. "But I wasn't thinking of it in that way. You WILL be in a frightful fix pretty soon, won't you?"

"It looks that way. But you need not be uneasy."

"Oh, I want to help you. I'll do everything I can. I was trying to think of something you could make money at. I was thinking of the stage, but I suppose you'd balk at that. I'll admit it isn't the life for a lady. But the same thing's true of whatever money can be made at. If I were you, I'd go back."

"If I were myself, I'd go back," said Mildred. "But I'm not myself."

"You will be again, as soon as you face the situation."

"No," said she slowly, "no, I shall never be myself again."

"But you could have everything a woman wants. Except, of course--perhaps-- But you never struck me as being especially sentimental."

"Sentiment has nothing to do with it," rejoined she. "Do you think I could get a place on the stage?"

"Oh, you'd have to study a while, I suppose."

"But I can't afford that. If I could afford to study, I'd have my voice trained."

Baird's face lighted up with enthusiasm. "The very thing!" he cried. "You've got a voice, a grand-opera voice. I've heard lots of people say so, and it sounded that way to me. You must cultivate your voice."

Mildred laughed. "Don't talk nonsense. Even I know that's nonsense. The lessons alone would cost thousands of dollars. And how could I live for the four or five years?"

"You didn't let me finish," said Baird. "I was going to say that when you get to New York you must go and have your voice passed on--by some impartial person. If that person says it's worth cultivating, why, I'm willing to back you--as a business proposition. I can afford to take the risk. So, you see, it's all perfectly simple."

He had spoken rapidly, with a covert suggestion of fear lest she would rebuke him sharply for what she might regard as an impertinent offer. She surprised him by looking at him calmly, reflectively, and saying:

"Yes, you could afford it, couldn't you?"

"I'm sure I could. And it's the sort of thing that's done every day. Of course, no one'd know that we had made this little business arrangement. But that's easily managed. I'd be glad if you'd let me do it, Mildred. I'd like to feel that I was of some use in the world. And I'd like to do something for YOU."

By way of exceedingly cautious experiment he ventured to put ever so slight an accent of tenderness upon the "you." He observed her furtively but nervously. He could not get a hint of what was in her mind. She gazed out toward the rising and falling horizon line. Presently she said:

"I'll think about it."

"You must let me do it, Mildred. It's the sensible thing--and you know me well enough to know that my friendship can be counted on."

"I'll think about it," was all she would concede.

They discussed the singing career all that and the succeeding days--the possibilities, the hopes, the dangers--but the hopes a great deal more than the dangers. He became more and more interested in her and in the project, as her beauty shone out with the tranquillizing sea and as her old charm of cleverness at saying things that amused him reasserted itself. She, dubious and lukewarm at first, soon was trying to curb her own excited optimism; but long before they sighted Sandy Hook she was merely pretending to hang back. He felt discouraged by her parting! "If I decide to go on, I'll write you in a few days." But he need not have felt so. She had made up her mind to accept his offer. As for the complications involved in such curiously intimate relations with a man of his temperament, habits, and inclinations, she saw them very vaguely indeed--refused to permit herself to see them any less vaguely. Time enough to deal with complications when and as they arose; why needlessly and foolishly annoy herself and hamper herself? Said she to herself, "I must begin to be practical."

IV

AT the pier Mildred sent her mother a telegram, giving the train by which she would arrive--that and nothing more. As she descended from the parlor-car there stood Mrs. Presbury upon the platform, face wreathed in the most joyous of welcoming smiles, not a surface trace of the curiosity and alarm storming within. After they had kissed and embraced with a genuine emotion which they did not try to hide, because both suddenly became unconscious of that world whereof ordinarily they were constantly mindful--after caresses and tears Mrs. Presbury said:

"It's all very well to dress plain, when everyone knows you can afford the best. But don't you think you're overdoing it a little?"

Mildred laughed somewhat nervously. "Wait till we're safe at home," said she.

On the way up from the station in the carriage they chattered away in the liveliest fashion, to make the proper impression upon any observing Hanging-Rockers. "Luckily, Presbury's gone to town to-day," said his wife. "But really he's quite livable--hasn't gone back to his old ways. He doesn't know it, but he's rapidly growing deaf. He imagines that everyone is speaking more and more indistinctly, and he has lost interest in conversation. Then, too, he has done well in Wall Street, and that has put him in a good humor."

"He'll not be surprised to see me--alone," said Mildred.

"Wait till we're home," said her mother nervously.

At the house Mrs. Presbury carried on a foolish, false-sounding conversation for the benefit of the servants, and finally conducted Mildred to her bedroom and shut doors and drew portieres and glanced into closets before saying: "Now, what IS the matter, Millie? WHERE is your husband?"

"In Paris, I suppose," replied Mildred. "I have left him, and I shall never go back."

"Presbury said you would!" cried her mother. "But I didn't believe it. I don't believe it. I brought you up to do your duty, and I know you will."

This was Mildred's first opportunity for frank and plain speaking; and that is highly conducive to frank and plain thinking. She now began to see clearly why she had quit the general. Said she: "Mamma, to be honest and not mince words, I've left him because there's nothing in it."

"Isn't he rich?" inquired her mother. "I've always had a kind of present--"

"Oh, he's rich, all right," interrupted the girl. "But he saw to it that I got no benefit from that."

"But you wrote me how he was buying you everything!"

"So I thought. In fact he was buying ME nothing." And she went on to explain the general's system.

Her mother listened impatiently. She would have interrupted the long and angry recital many times had not Mildred insisted on a full hearing of her grievances, of the outrages that had been heaped upon her. "And," she ended, "I suppose he's got it so arranged that he could have me arrested as a thief for taking the gold bag."

"Yes, it's terrible and all that," said her mother. "But I should have thought living with me here when Presbury was carrying on so dreadfully would have taught you something. Your case isn't an exception, any more than mine is. That's the sort of thing we women have to put up with from men, when we're in their power."

"Not I," said Mildred loftily.

"Yes, you," retorted her mother. "ANY woman. EVERY woman. Unless we have money of our own, we all have trouble with the men about money, sooner or later, in one way or another. And rich men!--why, it's notorious that they're always more or less mean about money. A wife has got to use tact. Why, I even had to use some tact with your father, and he was as generous a man as ever lived. Tact--that's a woman's whole life. You ought to have used tact. You'll go back to him and use tact."

"You don't know him, mamma!" cried Mildred. "He's a monster. He isn't human."

Mrs. Presbury drew a long face and said in a sad, soothing voice: "Yes, I know, dear. Men are very, very awful, in some ways, to a nice woman--with refined, ladylike instincts. It's a great shock to a pure--"

"Oh, gammon!" interrupted Mildred. "Don't be silly, mother. It isn't worth while for one woman to talk that kind of thing to another. I didn't fully know what I was doing when I married a man I didn't love--a man who was almost repulsive to me. But I knew enough. And I was getting along well enough, as any woman does, no matter what she may say--yes, you needn't look shocked, for that's hypocrisy, and I know it now-- But, as I was saying, I didn't begin to HATE him until he tried to make a slave of me. A slave!" she shuddered. "He's a monster!"

"A little tact, and you can get everything you want," insisted her mother.

"I tell you, you don't know the man," cried Mildred. "By tact I suppose you mean I could have sold things behind his back--and all that." She laughed. "He hasn't got any back. He had it so arranged that those cold, wicked eyes of his were always watching me. His second wife tried 'tact.' He caught her and drove her into the streets. I'd have had no chance to get a cent, and if I had gotten it I'd not have dared spend it. Do you imagine I ran away from him without having THOUGHT? If there'd been any way of staying on, any way of making things even endurable, I'd have stayed."

"But you've got to go back, Milly," cried her mother, in tears.

"You mean that you can't support me?"

"And your brother Frank--" Mrs. Presbury's eyes flashed and her rather stout cheeks quivered. "I never thought I'd tell anybody, but I'll tell you. I never liked your brother Frank, and he never liked me. That sounds dreadful, doesn't it?"

"No, mother dear," said Mildred gently. "I've learned that life isn't at all as--as everybody pretends."

"Indeed it isn't," said her mother. "Mothers always have favorites among their children, and very often a mother dislikes one of her children. Of course she hides her feeling and does her duty. But all the same she can't help the feeling that is down in her heart. I had a presentiment before he was born that I wouldn't like him, and sure enough, I didn't. And he didn't like me, or his father, or any of us."

"It would never occur to me to turn to him," said Mildred.

"Then you see that you've got to go back to the general. You can't get a divorce and alimony, for it was you that left him--and for no cause. He was within his rights."

Mildred hesitated, confessed: "I had thought of going back to him and acting in such a way that he'd be glad to give me a divorce and an allowance."

"Yes, you might do that," said her mother. "A great many women do. And, after all, haven't they a right to? A lady has got to have proper support, and is it just to ask her to live with a man she loathes?"

"I haven't thought of the right or wrong of it," said Mildred. "It looks to me as though right and wrong have very little to do with life as it's lived. They're for hypocrites--and fools."

"Mildred!" exclaimed her mother, deeply shocked.

Mildred was not a little shocked at her own thoughts as she inspected them in the full light into which speech had dragged them. "Anyhow," she went on, "I soon saw that such a plan was hopeless. He's not the man to be trifled with. Long before I could drive him to give me a living and let me go he would have driven me to flight or suicide."

Her mother had now had time to reflect upon Mildred's revelations. Aided by the impressions she herself had gotten of the little general, she began to understand why her daughter had fled and why she would not return. She felt that the situation was one which time alone could solve. Said she: "Well, the best thing is for you to stay on here and wait until he makes some move."

"He'll have me watched--that's all he'll do," said Mildred. "When he gets ready he'll divorce me for deserting him."