Chapter 11

"It ought to be cheap."

"Very cheap."

Then we both laughed. Then we were silent.

"Tell me," I said, "how is the great compromise working?"

"I don't know. I told him how I'd made up my mind to stick by the ship, so that there wouldn't be any scandal, or anything to break up his home, or hurt the children, and how I was going to be better about money, and he said, 'Very well, Lucy, we'll try it for a while, but I don't think compromises are much good.' He wants me to do all I'm trying to do, and be his wife too. I thought he'd--Oh, I thought he'd be pleased and grateful--instead of that he tries to be cold to me, and is very sharp and stern."

"It takes time to settle down to any new modus vivendi."

"Well," she cried, "I'm not doing it because I want to, am I? I'm only doing it for his sake. I'm doing every blessed thing I _can_ to save the situation; and if there are things I simply _can't_ do--why he ought to be generous and understand. Oh, I know it isn't going to work! And all the time when he isn't being cold and stern, he--he's trying to make me love him again, and come back to him. And right in the middle of that he'll fly into a rage, and say that I ought to be _compelled_ to behave like a rational human being."

"But he wouldn't compel you to do anything you didn't want to do, Lucy. Trust him for that."

"I don't know. He's so different from the way he used to be. Sometimes I'm afraid. Sometimes I am afraid to be alone in the same house with him. If I didn't have you to back me up, and give me strength I'd--but it can't last long. I know it can't. And I don't know that it's worth trying."

"You are still fond of him, Lucy?"

"And sorry for him, Oh, so sorry. But fondness and sorrow aren't everything."

"It will be better when he has the new contract to occupy him, and keep him away. It won't be an all-day affair then. And all the time you and I'll be meeting to talk things over, and borrow strength to go on with. It isn't easy for me either, dear. And of course, if after trial we find it won't work, why then it will be our duty to ourselves to cut the Gordian knot."

She turned toward me and we looked into each other's eyes for a long time.

"I've given him all I can," she said. "It isn't enough. It never will be enough. Oh, if there are knots to be cut, let's cut 'em and have done with it."

I dropped my reins, and leaning wide, took her in my arms and kissed her many times.

"We are romantic children," I said, "to think that there could be any other way. God bless you, my darling, we'll cut all the knots, and begin life all over again, and always be together."

She became then wonderfully cheerful and excited, and riding always at a walk, no longer on roads, but through the deep woods, we made our plans for the future.

Nothing was to be said to John until we were in a bigger place than Aiken. The bigger the place the smaller the scandal. I offered (with grave misgivings) to do the telling; but Lucy would not have it so. "It's his right," she said, "to know from me." John having been told, would, we felt sure from what we knew of his character, be willing to do the right thing. It wasn't as if he had been dishonored in any way. He would even be grateful to us for having been strong-minded and aboveboard. It would hurt him terribly. Yes, but a sudden final hurt was better than the lingering sickness from which he was now suffering. There would, of course, be no question of alimony. My father, much as he might disapprove of the whole affair, was not only fond of me, but fond of Lucy, and he would see us through.

It would take a long while to get a divorce. That was the darkest cloud on the horizon. But we must face that cheerfully; our reward would be all the greater when it came.

That John would be unwilling to give up Lucy even when he knew that she loved someone else never occurred to us. He belonged to that class of men whose code is to give the women all the best of everything. He was too fond of Lucy to wish to see her hurt. And if he wouldn't give her a divorce, hurt she would be, for in that unlikely event we were determined to jump on the nearest steamer and sail away for parts unknown.

"Why not come in?" said Lucy, when we had finished our ride. "You haven't been near the house for days, so it won't be very noticeable."

"All right," I said, "for a minute."

It was between dusk and dark. The lights had not been turned on in the hall. The opportunity seemed rare and sweet. We stood for one brief fleeting moment closely enlaced--and swiftly separated, and stood breathing fast, and listening.

Lucy was the first to make up her mind.

She stepped swiftly to the dining-room door and flung it open. She was in time to see the trim shoulders and white cap of a servant disappearing from the dining-room into the pantry.

"Who was it?"

"My new waitress."

"Hilda?"

Lucy smiled grimly. "She'll leave tomorrow."

"Don't discharge her. She might tell. Perhaps she didn't see."

I joined Lucy in the dining-room, closed the door, knelt and looked back into the hall through the keyhole.

"Could she see?"

I rose to my feet and nodded.

"He mustn't hear from anyone but me," said Lucy. "I'll speak to her."

But Hilda was not in the pantry.

"I don't think she'll tell," I said, "and after all what does it matter? Let's take a chance."

Mentally I resolved to communicate with Hilda at the earliest possible moment, and to use whatever influence I had upon her. So I was no sooner in my room at home than I took the receiver from my private telephone and gave the number of the Fultons' house. After an interval I heard Hilda's voice.

"It's Mr. Mannering, Hilda."

"Yes, sir."

"I want to see you about something important."

"I know."

So she knew, did she?

"Can you meet me at ten o'clock tonight?"

"Where?"

"Leave the house at ten sharp, and walk toward the town; I'll be watching for you. You'll come?"

"Yes, sir."

XXV

Near the Fultons, fronting on the street, is a large overgrown yard that has never been built on. Here in the shadow of a great cedar tree I waited and watched for Hilda. On the stroke of ten I saw her coming. She had a neat, brave, brisk way of walking, her head well up, as if she was afraid of nothing. A few moments later I hailed her from under my cedar, and after glancing up and down the street to see if anyone was watching, she joined me there.

It was very dark. I could just make out her face. She was breathing fast and had one hand pressed upon her heart.

"Thank you for coming, Hilda. You saw Mrs. Fulton and me in the hall?"

"And heard you."

"I'm throwing myself on your mercy, Hilda. Mrs. Fulton and I love each other. When we get back to New York we are going to tell Mr. Fulton. He will let Mrs. Fulton divorce him, and then we are to be married. You'll be my friend, won't you, and not tell? There's been nothing wrong, Hilda----"

"Only kisses."

"But if he found out from anyone but Mrs. Fulton--you see he isn't very well and he might do something crazy--something tragic. You see if you told him what you'd seen, he might act before anyone had a chance to explain."

I was trying to make the matter sound more serious than I felt it to be. Whatever happened, I did not think that Fulton was the kind of man who forgets his education and his civilization, but I wanted, if I could, to frighten Hilda into secrecy.

"You'd not want to get me all shot up, would you, Hilda?"

She was silent for a time, as if weighing pros and cons in her head. Then she looked up at me and said:

"When _I_ saw, _I_ didn't do anything crazy."

"Hilda," I said, "he has to be hurt and you have to be hurt. That's always been the way with love--it always will be."

She was silent again. Then she said in a low voice that carried with it a certain power to thrill: "He'd die for her. And I'd die for you. But he's only a worn-out glove, and I'm only a common servant. She thinks she'd die for you, and you think you'd die for her. But you're both wrong. A woman that won't stand by her babies isn't going to die for anyone, not if she knows it. A man that gets to your age without marrying any of the women he's gone with isn't going to die for anyone if he can help it. Wait till you've crossed her selfish will a few times and see how much she'll die for you; wait till she begins to use you the way she used him. A whole lot you'll want to die for--her--then----"

"I can't listen to this, Hilda."

"You _will_ listen, or else I'll scream and say you attacked me--a whole lot she'll feel like dying for you _then_. Servants have eyes and ears and hearts. There's servants in that house that know how things used to be, who see how things are now, since you came philandering around. And do you know what those servants think of her, and what I think of her for the way she's treated him? Oh, they like her well enough because she's gentle and easy-going, and good-tempered and easy to get on with; but there isn't a servant in that house would change characters with her. We think she's the kind of woman that's beneath contempt--lazy, selfish, spendthrift--always pampering number one--and going about the world looking like a sad, bruised lily. Do you think the servants in that house don't know all about your goings and comings, and the life you've led, the harm you've done and didn't have to do, the good you might have done, and didn't?"

"But, Hilda----"

She motioned me to be silent. Her ears, sharper than mine, or more attentive, had heard voices. They were negro voices, a man's and a woman's. We drew deeper into the shadow of the cedar.

"So you got no mo' use for me, nigger?" The man's voice rumbled softly and threatened like distant thunder. "Yo' got to have yo' fling?"

Then the woman's voice, shrill but subdued: "I don' love you no mo', Frank."

"You got er nice home 'n nice lil' babies, 'n you goin' to leave 'em fo' a yaller man--is you?"

They were opposite us now, walking very slowly and occasionally lurching against each other.

"Yo' ain't goin' ter make trouble, Frank?"

"I ain't goin' ter give you up, Lily."

"You ain't? How you goin' ter fix fo' ter keep me?"

They came to a halt and faced each other, the woman defensive and defiant, the man somber, quiet, with a certain savage dignity and slowly smoldering like an inactive volcano. You couldn't see their features, only a white flashing of eyes and teeth in such light as there was.

"You's one er dese new women," said the man softly. "You's got ter be boss 'n have yo' own way."

He stood for some moments looking down into her face, appraising as it were her flightiness, and meditating justice. Then he struck her quietly, swiftly and hard, so that her half-open mouth closed with a sharp snap.

She was not senseless, but she made no effort to rise. He stood over her, smoldering. Then, his voice suddenly soft and tender, "I reckon I is got ter learn you," he said, and he picked her up in his arms and carried her from the roadside deep into the tangled growths of the vacant yard--deeper and deeper, until no sound at all came to us from them.

"That was Mrs. Fulton's laundress and her husband," said Hilda. "She's been trying to copy Mrs. Fulton; but _he's_ settled that. He's a real man, and he'll keep his wife. Women like to be hit and trampled. It proves to them that they're worth while."

"That may be, Hilda. I don't know. I couldn't hit a woman. . . . You haven't told me that you're not going to tell what you saw."

"I don't know," she said; "he's suffered enough. It ought to end."

"But I thought you--didn't want to hurt me?"

"I don't. Still----"

"Still what?"

"Oh, favors aren't everything."

"What do you mean, Hilda!"

"Oh, I'm just a servant. I suppose I could be bought."

"I thought better of you."

"Not with money."

"Not with money? How then?"

She turned her face up to mine, then smiled and closed her eyes. "A kiss more or less," she said, "wouldn't matter much to _you_."

And I kissed her.

Then she opened her eyes and looked up at me until the silence between us grew oppressive. Then with a sudden, "Oh, what's the use!" turned and hurried off. But I caught up with her in two bounds.

"Don't go away like that."

"Oh," she cried, "I hoped you _wouldn't_. But you _did_. It's bad enough to love you, but to despise you too! Oh, don't worry. _I_ won't tell. I've been bought, I've _lived_."

I remained for a long time, alone, under the cedar tree. I was horribly ashamed and troubled, not because I had kissed her, but because I had had the impulse to kiss her again, because I realized at last that it takes more than a romantic love affair to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Because for a moment I saw myself as Hilda saw me--because for a moment I was able to judge Lucy and me, as others would judge us.

I remained for a long time. The negro and his wife came quietly out of the bushes, her arm through his. She would not now run off with the yellow man. I watched them until the darkness swallowed them.

I leaned against the fragrant stem of the cedar, my hand across my eyes. And in that moment of self-reproach, dread and contempt of the future, I too wished the most worthy and sincere wish of my life.

I wished that I had never been born.

XXVI

For once, with complete fervor, I wished that I had never been born. And if I was to get back any glimmerings of self-respect, I must act like a man. Upon what grounds did I found the hope that Fulton would not soon find out about Lucy and me? Why, on the grounds of moral cowardice, of course. I dreaded to face any drastic, final issue. There was no other reason. Well, if I was to prove to myself that I was not a moral coward, Fulton must be told and the issue faced, and Fulton himself must be out-faced. It was not enough to love and be loved in secret. That way lies stealing and cheating. We must come into the open hand in hand, proclaim our love and demand our rights. If these were denied us--well, it would be too bad. But at least we would have come out from under the rose, and the consequences could be flung openly and courageously in the faces of those who denied us. And it would be fairer to Fulton to tell him. He was suffering torment. With a definite cause to face, it would be easier for him to regain his health and his sanity.

Strong in these resolutions, I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But if you think that I went at once to Fulton and told him, you have greatly misapprehended the mental workings of a butterfly.

I went first to Lucy, and told her that I was going to tell. And from her, too, it was as if a weight had been lifted.

"We can't go on this way forever," I said; "we thought we could, but we know we can't. We love each other and we're human, and sooner or later--Oh, it's best to go to him now with a clean bill, and tell him that love is too strong for us all, and that he must come out on the side of love no matter how much it hurts him."

"When are you going to tell him?"

"No time like the present, Lucy."

And I drew a long breath, for in spite of the bold words, I felt panicky. I felt as if the doctors had just set the time for the operation, and that it was sooner than I expected.

"We ought to have told him long ago. Where is he?"

"In the garden."

"It's a hard thing to do. Give me a kiss."

A moment later I felt strong enough and noble enough to slay dragons. And I found Fulton sitting on a garden bench in a recess of clipped privet, Hurry on his lap.

"She isn't feeling very well, poor baby," he said; "it's the sudden heat. She couldn't eat any breakfast. Did you want to see me about something special?"

"Why, yes, I do. But you're busy with Hurry."

"We were just going in to lie down, weren't we?" he said to the child. "I won't be a minute."

He picked her up in his arms, and carried her into the house. A few moments later he returned, smiling, as if she had said something that had touched his humor.

"Let's sit on the bench," he said. "It's the one cool place in Aiken, this morning."

Mechanically I sat down beside him and accepted a cigarette from his case.

"I always dread the first hot spell for the babies," he said. "I'm glad we're going up early this year."

"You'll be in New York a while?"

"At the New Turner. And then Stamford. Poor Lucy dreads Stamford, but I've got to be near the works. What are you planning to do this summer?"

"It depends a great deal on you, John."

Now he turned to me with a very grave expression on his face. "On me?"

"I love Lucy, John, and she feels the same way about me."

His expression of courteous inquiring gravity did not change. "So _that's_ what was at the bottom of everything. I told her she was seeing too much of you, but she wouldn't listen. Of course, my contention was just on general principles. I thought you were both to be trusted."

"We only found it out just before you went to Palm Beach."

"You ought to have seen it coming. A man of your experience and record isn't like a college freshman in such matters."

"If I had seen it coming, John, believe me I'd have run from it. But all at once it had come, and it's a question now, not of what might have been, but of Lucy's happiness."

"Yes," he said, "we mustn't think of ourselves now, or of the children. We must think of what is best for Lucy. And what is best for Lucy can't be thought out offhand. There's the complication of winding up here, moving, and so forth. What is your idea? Yours and Lucy's?"

"We hope and trust that you won't want to stand in our way."

"Divorce? Well, of course, it might come to that. It's not, however, an idea which I am prepared offhand to receive with enthusiasm. Any more than I propose to act upon the very first impulse which I had when you told me."

"What was that?"

"I thought how delicious it would be to get my automatic and fill you full of lead. But you and Lucy, I take it, have so far resisted your temptations, and I must battle with mine."

"I ought to have said _that_; our temptations have been resisted, John."

He shrugged that vital fact aside with, "Oh, I should have known if there had been anything to know."

"I needn't say, need I, that I feel like hell about your position, your end of it?"

"My position is not so bad as it was. I have something definite to face now. But much as I appreciate your impulsive good will, I don't think that your sympathy is a thing which I care to accept. Lucy, of course, feels that her fancy for you is a more imperative call than her duty to her children and me."

"You've been in love, John."

"I _am_ in love. I think we had better not discuss our several powers of loving."

He rose from the bench and began to stroll up and down in front of it.

"I haven't," he said, "given this contingency any thought whatever. You and Lucy will have to possess your souls in patience for a time. It is all very sudden. But supposing for a moment that I should consent to a divorce. Are you able to support a wife?"

"I have no money of my own," I said, "but my father, as you know, has oceans of it, and gives me a very handsome income."

"And yet he might not care to support you above the ruins of a home. In that eventuality what could you do? Lucy is very extravagant."

"I could work my hands to the bone for her."

Fulton looked curiously at his own lean, nervous hands, smiled faintly, and said: "Yes, and then be chucked aside like a worn-out garment. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And now you'll be anxious to see Lucy, and report. Tell her that I swallowed the pill without making too much of a face. Tell her that I seemed inclined to be reasonable. Tell her also with my compliments that she must continue to exercise self-restraint and patience. Things are bad enough. If they were any worse I could not answer the consequences."

"All right, John. Thank you for taking it so calmly."

"Oh, I'm not calm inside. Don't worry about that."

I left him there--standing very straight in the garden path, his face the color of granite, and of the stillness.

XXVII

"What did he say?"

Her face was brilliant with excitement and anxiety. And I told her as well as I could.

"He was preternaturally calm and easy," I said; "I couldn't imagine a man being more well-bred about anything. But he won't say anything definite now. Of course, he ought to have time to think. We could have counted on that, if we'd thought. He will take plenty of time to make up his mind, and then he won't change it. But Lord, I'm glad he knows now; and from us."

There was a quiet knocking on the half-open door of the living-room.

"Come in. . . . Oh, John, you needn't have knocked."

He came in slowly and quietly, a gentle smile on his lips. The gray granite look had softened into his natural coloring.

"I must say you're a very handsome pair," he said. "Don't go just yet, Archie. If we three are to talk things over in the future, we had better have a little tentative practice. Are we three the only ones who know of this sensational development?"

"And Schuyler," I said.

"Is he for you or against you?"

"We thought we could be just great friends and see each other once in a while. He was for that. But, of course, that was only romantic nonsense."

"Yes, that was nonsense," said Fulton. "It would have made my position altogether too ridiculous. Did it occur to you to be great friends, and not see each other?"

"John," exclaimed Lucy, "you don't understand."

"I don't understand the importance which lovers attach to love? Well, perhaps not. Drunkards hate to cure themselves of drink; smokers of smoke; lovers of love. Yet all these appetites can be cured, often to the immense benefit of the sufferers and of everybody concerned. And so you thought you could lead two lives at once, Lucy?"

"I did think so."

"Gathering strength in romantic byways to see you through the prosy thoroughfares? It wouldn't have worked."

"We know that now."

"You couldn't have lied about every meeting with Archie--lied as to where you were going and where you had been. Truth comes natural to you, even if you seem to have fallen down on some of the other virtues."

I _knew_ that he was laboring under a great strain. And yet for the life of me I could not read any symptoms of that laboring in his face or voice. His voice was easy, casual, and tinged with humor. It was almost as if he was relieved to find two such inconsequential persons as Lucy and myself at the bottom of his troubles. Now and then his left eyebrow arched high on his forehead, and there would be a sharp sudden glance in the corresponding eye.

"I wonder," he said, turning to me, "if people in your situation ever look at it from the critical outsider's point of view. Have you considered that a passion for something forbidden is not a natural, not a respectable passion? According to all moral and social laws Lucy is a forbidden object for your love and vice versa. People are not going to think well of you two."

"Oh, we know _that_," said Lucy, wearily.

"My dear Lucy, you mustn't show signs of distress so early in the game. What we are discussing, or trying to throw a little light on, is the subject which just now, by all accounts, should interest you more than anything else in the world. Furthermore, I really must insist on consideration for myself and the children."

"No amount of talk ever made me do right--or wrong," said Lucy; "I just do right or wrong, and of course _you_ think this is wrong. So what's the use?"

"Think it wrong," exclaimed Fulton, "of course I do. Don't _you_?" His voice expressed almost horrified surprise. "Don't _you_ think it wrong to fall out of love with your husband, into love with another man, and to take no more interest in your children than if they were a couple of wooden dolls made in Germany?"