Cytherea Part 17

Twice, the following day, Lee telephoned to f.a.n.n.y, but neither time was she in the house; and, kept at his office, he was obliged to take an inconvenient train that made a connection for Eastlake. When Lee reached the countryside opening in the familiar hilly vistas he had, in place of the usual calm recognitions through a run of hardly more than an hour, a sense of having come a long way to a scene from which he had been absent for years. It appeared to him remarkably tranquil and self-contained--safe was the word which came to him. He was glad to be there, but at indeterminate stations rather than in Eastlake. He dreaded, for no plainly comprehended reason, his return home. The feelings that, historically, he should have owned were all absent. Had it been possible he would have cancelled the past forty-eight hours; but Lee was forced to admit to himself that he was not invaded by a very lively sense of guilt. He made a conventional effort to see his act in the light of a grave fault--whatever was attached to the charge of adultery--but it failed before the conviction that the whole thing was sad.

His sorrow was for Savina, for the suffering of her past, the ordeal of the present, and the future dreariness. There had been no suggestion of wrong in her surrender, no perceptible consciousness of shame: it was exactly as though, struggling to the limit of endurance against a powerful adverse current, she had turned and swept with it. The fact was that the entire situation was utterly different from the general social and moral conception of it; and Lee began to wonder which were stronger--the individual truth or the imposed dogmatic weight of the world. But the latter, he added, would know nothing of this. Concisely, there was to be no repet.i.tion of last night; there would be no affair.

Lee Randon had completely and sharply focussed the most adverse possible att.i.tude toward that: he saw it without a redeeming feature and bare of any chance of pleasure. His need for honesty, however special, was outraged on every facet by the thought of an intrigue. Lee reconstructed it in every detail--he saw the moments, doubtful and hurried and surrept.i.tious, s.n.a.t.c.hed in William Grove's house; the servants, with their penetration of the tone of an establishment, knowing and insufferable; he lived over the increasing dissatisfaction with quick embraces in the automobile, and the final indignities of lying names and rooms of pandering and filthy debas.e.m.e.nt. The almost inevitable exposure followed, the furies and hysterical reproaches. That, indeed, would have involved them fatally: in such circ.u.mstances the world would be invincible, crus.h.i.+ng; holding solidly its front against such dangerous a.s.sault, it would have poured over Savina and him a conviction of sin in which they would unavoidably have perished.

As it was, he had told her--with, in himself, the feeling of a considerable discovery--that they were to a marked degree superior: he could find no more remorse at his heart than Savina showed. This, exactly, was his inner conviction--that, since he had given something not in f.a.n.n.y's possession, he had robbed her of nothing. It was a new idea to him and it required careful thought, a slow justification. It answered, perhaps, once and for all, his question about the essential oneness of marriage. Yes, that was a misconception; marriage in an ideal state he wasn't considering, but only his own individual position. To love but one woman through this life and into a next would be blissful ... if it were possible; there might be a great deal saved--but by someone else--in heroically supporting such an Elysian tenet; Lee Randon definitely hadn't the necessary utopianism.

Love wasn't a sacred fluid held in a single vessel of alabaster; marriage didn't conveniently create shortsightedness. Lee couldn't pretend to answer all this for women, or even in part for Savina.

Her att.i.tude, he knew, in that it never touched the abstract, was far simpler than his; she didn't regard herself as scarlet, but thought of the rest of the world as unendurably drab. The last thing she had said to him was that she was glad, glad, that it had happened. This, too, in Savina, had preserved them from the slightest suggestion of inferiority: the night a.s.sumed no resemblance to a disgraceful footnote on the page of righteousness. It was complete--and, by G.o.d, admirable!--within itself. No one, practically, would agree with him, and here, in the fact that no one ever could know, his better wisdom was shown.

About love, the thing itself, his perceptions remained dim: he had loved f.a.n.n.y enormously at the time of their wedding and he loved her now, so many years after; but his feeling--as he had tried so unfortunately to tell her--wasn't the same, it had grown calm; it had become peaceful, but an old tempestuous need had returned. Yet, until he had gone to the Groves', his restlessness had been trivial, hardly more than academic, a half-smiling interest in a doll; but now, after he had left the realm of fancy for an overt act, a full realization of his implication was imperative. Without it he would be unable to preserve any satisfactory life with f.a.n.n.y at all; his uneasiness must merely increase, become intolerable. Certainly there was a great, it should be an inexhaustible, amount of happiness for him in his wife, his children and his home; he would grow old and negative with them, and there die.

But a lot of mental re-adjustment, understanding, was necessary first.

Suddenly the minor adventures and sensations of the past had become, even before the completeness of the affair with Savina, insuperably distasteful to him; he simply couldn't look forward to a procession of them reaching to impotence. No, no, no! That was never Cytherea's import. He didn't want to impoverish himself by the cheap flinging away of small coin from his ultimate store. He didn't, equally, wish to keep on exasperating f.a.n.n.y in small ways. That pettiness was wholly to blame for what discomfort he had had. His wife's claim was still greater on him than any other's; and what, now, he couldn't give her must be made up in different ways. This conviction invested him with a fresh sense of dignity and an increasing regard for f.a.n.n.y.

What a shame it was that he could not go quietly to her with all this, tell her everything. A lie was rooted, concealed, beyond removal at the base of the honesty he planned. There was, of course, this additional phase of the difficulty--what had happened concerned Savina even more than it did his wife and him. He had Savina Grove, so entirely in his hands, to guard. And the innate animosity of women toward women was incalculable. That wasn't a new thought, but it recurred to him with special force. As much as he desired it, utter frankness, absolute safety, was impossible. f.a.n.n.y's standard of duty, or responsibility, was worlds apart from his.

Bitterly and without premeditation he cursed the tyranny of s.e.x; in countless forms it dominated, dictated, every aspect of life. Men's conception of women was quite exclusively founded on it in its aspects of chast.i.ty or license. In the latter they deprecated the former, and in the first they condemned all trace of the latter. The result of this was that women, the prost.i.tutes and the mothers alike, as well, had no other validity of judgment. The present marriage was hardly more than an exchange of the violation of innocence, or of acted innocence, for an adequate material consideration. If this were not true, why was innocence--a silly fact in itself--so insisted upon? Lee was forced to conclude however, that it was the fault of men: they turned, at an advancing age when it was possible to gather a comfortable competence, to the young. By that time their emotions were apt to be almost desperately variable.

In his case it had been different--but life was different, easier, when he had married--and his wedding most appropriate to felicity. Yet that, against every apparent reason to the contrary, had vanished, and left him this calm determining of his fate. Through his thoughts a quirk of memory ran like a tongue of flame. He felt Savina's hand under his cuff; he felt her sliding, with her arms locked about his neck, out of her furs in the automobile; a white glimmer, a whisper, she materialized in the coldness of the night. There was a long-drawn wailing blast from the locomotive--they were almost entering the train-shed at Eastlake. When f.a.n.n.y expected him, and it was possible, she met him at the station; but tonight he would have to depend on one of the rattling local motor hacks. Still, he looked for her and was faintly and unreasonably disappointed at her absence. An uncontrollable nervousness, as he approached his house, invaded the preparation of a warm greeting.

f.a.n.n.y was seated at dinner, and she interrupted her recognition of his arrival to order his soup brought in. "It's really awfully hard to have things nice when you come at any time," she said in the voice of restraint which usually mildly irritated him. He was apt to reply shortly, unsympathetically; but, firm in the determination to improve the tone of his relations with f.a.n.n.y, he cheerfully met the evidence of her sense of injury. "Of course," she added, "we expected you yesterday up to the very last minute." When he asked her who exactly she meant by we she answered, "The Rodmans and John and Alice Luce. It was all arranged for you. Borden Rodman sent us some ducks; I remembered how you liked them, and I asked the others and cooked them myself. That's mixed, but you know what I mean. I had oysters and the thick tomato soup with crusts and Brussels sprouts; and I sent to town for the alligator pears and meringue. I suppose it can't be helped, and it's all over now, but you might have let me know."

"I am sorry, f.a.n.n.y," he acknowledged; "at the last so much piled up to do. Mina Raff was very doubtful. I can't tell if I accomplished anything with her or not." f.a.n.n.y seemed to have lost all interest in Peyton Morris's affair. "I had dinner with Mina and talked a long while. At bottom she is sensible enough; and very sensitive. I like sensitive women."

"You mean that you like other women to be sensitive," she corrected him; "whenever I am, you get impatient and say I'm looking for trouble."

There was, he replied, a great deal in what she said; and it must be remedied. At this she gazed at him for a speculative second. "Where did you take Mina Raff to dinner?" she asked; "and what did you do afterward?" He told her. "She was so tired that she went back to the Plaza before ten. No, I returned to the Groves'. It's no good being in New York alone. We'll have our party together there before Christmas."

"I imagined you'd see a lot of her."

"Of Mina Raff? What nonsense! She is working all day and practically never goes out. People have such wrong ideas about actresses, or else they have changed and the opinions have stood still. They are as business-like now as lawyers; you make an appointment with their secretaries. Besides that, Mina doesn't specially attract me."

"At any rate you call her Mina."

"Why so I do; I hadn't noticed; but she hasn't started to call me Lee; I must correct her."

"They played bridge afterward," f.a.n.n.y said, referring, he gathered, to the occasion he had missed. "That is, the Rodmans and the Luces did, and I sat around. People are too selfish for anything!" Her voice grew sharper. "They stayed until after twelve, just because Borden was nineteen dollars back at one time. And they drank all that was left of your special Mount Vernon. It was last night that you were at the St.

Regis?"

"No," he corrected her, "the night before. Last evening I had dinner with the Groves." This was so nearly true that he advanced it with satisfaction. "Afterward we went to the Greenwich Follies."

"I don't see how you had to wait, then," she observed instantly. "You were in New York on account of Claire, you stayed three nights, and only saw Mina Raff once." He told her briefly that, unexpectedly, more had turned up. "What did you do the first night?" she persisted.

"I dragged a cash girl into an opium place on Pell Street."

"That's not too funny to be borne," she returned; "and it doesn't altogether answer my question."

"We went to Malmaison."

"We?" she mimicked his earlier query.

"Oh, the Groves. I like them very much, f.a.n.n.y--" To her interruption that that was evident he paid no attention. "He is an extremely nice man, a little too conscious of his pedestal, but solid and cordial.

Mrs. Grove is more unusual; I should say she was a difficult woman to describe. She dresses beautifully, Paris and the rest of it; but she isn't a particle good-looking. Not a bit! It's her color, I think. She hasn't any. Women would fancy her more than men; no one could call her pleasant."

"You haven't asked about the children." She had apparently heard nothing of what had gone before.

"Of course they are all right or you'd have told me."

"Lee, you astonish me, you really do; at times I think you forget you have a family. We'll all be dead before you know it. I'm sorry, but you will have to get into the habit of staying home at least one night a week. I attend to all I can manage about the place, but there are some things you must settle. The trouble is I haven't demanded enough from you."

"That's silly," he responded, almost falling into his discarded irritation; "I practically never go out without you. Unless you are with me I won't be in New York again for weeks."

"I should have thought you'd be back at the Groves's tomorrow. It's more amusing there, I don't doubt; but, after all, you are married to me."

"Good heavens, f.a.n.n.y," he protested, "what is this about? You're really cutting with the Groves--two excessively nice people who were decent to me."

"You are such an idiot," she declared, in a warmer voice. "Can't you see how disappointed I was? First I had everything laid out on the bed, my best nightgowns and lace stockings, for the trip; then I couldn't go; and I arranged the party so carefully for you, Gregory had a practice piece ready for you to hear, and--and nothing. I wonder if any other man is as selfish as you?'

"Maybe not," he returned peaceably. "What happened was unavoidable. It was a social necessity, decided for me. I couldn't just run into the house and out again. But there is no need to explain further." He left the table, for a cigar, and returned. "You have on a new dress!"

"I ought to be complimented," she admitted, "but I am not; it's only the black velvet with the fulness taken out and a new ruffle. Clothes are so expensive that I wanted to save. It isn't French, either. Perhaps you'll remember that you said the new length didn't become me. No, you're not the idiot--I am: I must stop considering and trying to please you at every turn. I should have gone in and ordered a new dress; any other woman you know would have done that; and, I have no doubt, would have told you it was old when it wasn't. I wish I didn't show that I care so much and kept you guessing. You'd be much more interested if you weren't so sure of me. That seems to me queer--loyalty and affection, and racking your brain to make your husband comfortable and happy, don't bring you anything. They don't! You'll leave at once for a night in New York or a new face with an impudent bang at the dances. I have always tried to do what I thought was right, but I'm getting discouraged."

"Don't lose patience with me," he begged gravely. "If I am worth the effort to you, f.a.n.n.y, don't stop. I do the best I can. Coming out in the train I made up my mind to stop petty quarreling. No, wait--if it is my fault that makes it easy, we're done with it."

"From the way you talk," she objected, "anyone would think we did nothing but fight. And that isn't true; we have never had a bit of serious trouble." She rose, coming around to him:

"That wasn't a very nice kiss we had when you came in. I was horrid."

Lee Randon kissed her again. The cool familiarity of her lips was blurred in the remembered clinging intensity of Savina's mouth. "Lee, dear, blow out the candles; the servants forget, and those blue handmade ones cost twenty-five cents apiece." They left the dining-room with her arm about him and his hand laid on her shoulder. Lee's feeling was curious--he recognized f.a.n.n.y's desirability, he loved her beyond all doubt, and yet physically she had now no perceptible influence on him.

He was even a little embarra.s.sed, awkward, at her embrace; and its calmly possessive pressure filled him with a restive wish to move away.

He repressed this, forced himself to hold her still, repeated silently all that she had given him; and she turned a face brilliant with color to his gaze. f.a.n.n.y made him bring her stool--how sharply Savina's heels had dug into him under the table at the Lafayette--and showed him her ankles. "You see, I put them on tonight for you." Her stockings, he a.s.sured her, were enchanting. A difficulty that, incredibly, he had not foreseen weighed upon him: the body, where f.a.n.n.y was concerned, had given place to the intellect; the warmth of his feeling had been put aside for the logic of determination; and he was sick with weariness. In his customary chair, he sank into a heavy brooding lethargy, a silence, in which his hands slowly and stiffly clenched.

On the following morning, Sunday, Lee rode with Claire Morris. f.a.n.n.y, disinclined to activity, stayed by the open fire, with the ill.u.s.trated sections of the newspapers and her ornamental sewing. Claire was on, a tall bright bay always a little ahead of Lee, and he was constantly urging his horse forward. "Peyton went to the Green Spring Valley for a hunt party last night," she told him; "he said he'd be back." Why, then, he almost exclaimed, he, Lee, had been successful with Mina Raff.

Instead he said that she would undoubtedly be glad of that. "Oh, yes!

But neither of us is very much excited about it just now; he is too much like a ball on a rubber string; and if I were a man I'd hate to resemble that. I won't try to hide from you that I've lost something; still, I have him and Mina hasn't. They shouldn't have hesitated, Lee; that was what spoiled it, in the end beat them. It wasn't strong enough to carry them away and d.a.m.n the consequences. There is always something to admire in that, even if you suffer from it."

The night had been warm, and the road, the footing, was treacherous with loosened stones and mud. The horses, mounting a hill, picked their way carefully; and Lee Randon gazed over his shoulder into the valley below.

He saw it through a screen of bare wet maple branches--a dripping brown meadow lightly wreathed in blue mist, sedgy undergrowth along water and the further ranges of hills merged in s.h.i.+fting clouds. A shaft of sunlight, pale and without warmth, illuminated with its emphasis an undistinguished and barren spot. On the meadows sloping to the south there were indefinite s.p.a.ces of green. Claire was heedless of their surroundings.

"What does surprise and disturb me," she continued vigorously, "is that I haven't any sympathy for him. That is gone too; I only have a feeling that he b.i.t.c.hed it. As you may observe, Lee, I am not at all admirable this morning: a figure of inconsistency. And the reason will amaze you--I've rather come to envy what they might have had. I am afraid that if the positions of Mina and me had been reversed I wouldn't have seen you in New York. I found that out last night when I knew Peyton wasn't going. What he said over and over was that everything could be just as it was." She laughed, riding easily, subconsciously, on the snaffle rein. "Peyton's simplicity is marvelous. In a year, or maybe less, he will be quite the same as always. I had nothing to do with it; Peyton and Mina will go on as fresh as daisies; yet only I'll be damaged or, anyway, changed. What shall I do about it?" she demanded of Lee Randon, so sharply that her horse s.h.i.+ed.

"About what?" he returned. "My senses are so dulled by your ingrat.i.tude that I can't gather what you mean."