The Grain of Dust Part 55

Norman's smile was cynically patient. "I want my home and I want my career," said he. "And I don't want any society nonsense. I had the good luck to marry a woman who knows and cares nothing about it. I don't purpose to give up the greatest advantage of my marriage."

Ursula was astounded. She knew the meaning of his various tones and manners, and his way of rejecting her plans for Dorothy--and, incidentally, for her own amus.e.m.e.nt--convinced her that he was through and through in earnest. "It will be dreadfully lonesome for her, Fred,"

she pleaded.

"We'll wait till that trouble faces us," replied he, not a bit impressed. "And don't forget--not a word of temptation to her from you."

This with an expression that warned her how well he knew her indirect ways of accomplis.h.i.+ng what she could not gain directly.

"Oh, I shan't interfere," said she in a tone that made it a binding promise. "But you can't expect me to sympathize with your plans for an old-fas.h.i.+oned domestic life."

"Certainly not," said Norman. "You don't understand. Women of your sort never do. That's why you're not fit to be the wives of men worth while.

A serious man and a society woman can't possibly hit it off together.

For a serious man the outside world is a place to work, and home is a place to rest. For a society woman, the world is a place to idle and home is a work shop, an entertainment factory. It's impossible to reconcile those two opposite ideas."

She saw his point at once, and it appealed to her intelligence. And she had his own faculty for never permitting prejudice to influence judgment. She said in a dubious tone, "Do you think Dorothy will sympathize with your scheme?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied he.

"If she doesn't--" Ursula halted there.

Her brother shrugged his shoulders. "If she proves to be the wrong sort of woman for me, she'll go her way and I mine."

"Why, I thought you loved her!"

"What have I said that leads you to change your mind?" said he.

"A man does not take the high hand with the woman he adores."

"So?" said Norman tranquilly.

"Well," said his puzzled sister by way of conclusion, "if you persist in being the autocrat----"

"Autocrat?--I?" laughed he. "Am I trying to compel her to do anything she doesn't wish to do? Didn't I say she would be free to go if she were dissatisfied with me and my plan--if she didn't adopt it gladly as her own plan, also?"

"But you know very well she's dependent upon you, Fred."

"Is that my fault? Does a man force a woman to become dependent? And just because she is dependent, should he therefore yield to her and let her make of his life a waste and a folly?"

"You're far too clever for me to argue with. Anyhow, as I was saying, if you persist in what I call tyranny----"

"When a woman cries tyranny, it means she's furious because she is not getting _her_ autocratic way."

"Maybe so," admitted Ursula cheerfully. "At any rate, if you persist--unless she loves you utterly, your life will be miserable."

"She may make her own life miserable, but not mine," replied he. "If I were the ordinary man--counting himself lucky to have induced any woman to marry him--afraid if he lost his woman he'd not be able to get another--able to give his woman only an indifferent poor support, and so on--if I were one of those men, what you say might be true. But what deep and permanent mischief can a frail woman do a strong man?"

"There's instance after instance in history----"

"Of strong men wrecking _themselves_ through various kinds of madness, including s.e.x madness. But, my dear Ursula, not an instance--not one--where the woman was responsible. If history were truth, instead of lies--you women might have less conceit."

"You--talking this way!" mocked Ursula.

"Meaning, I suppose, my late infatuation?" inquired he, unruffled.

"I never saw or read of a worse case."

"Am I ruined?"

"No. But why not? Because you got her. If you hadn't--" Ursula blew out a large cloud of cigarette smoke with a "Pouf!"

"If I hadn't got her," said Norman, "I'd have got well, just the same, in due time. A sick _weak_ man goes down; a sick _strong_ man gets well.

When a man who's reputed to be strong doesn't get well, it's because he merely seemed strong but wasn't. The poets and novelists and the historians and the rest of the nature fakers fail to tell _all_ the facts, dear sister. All the facts would spoil a pretty story."

Ursula thought a few minutes, suddenly burst out with, "Do you think Dorothy loves you now?"

Norman rose to go out doors. "I don't think about such unprofitable things," said he. "As long as we suit each other and get along pleasantly--why bother about a name for it?"

In the French window he paused, stood looking out with an expression so peculiar that Ursula, curious, came to see the cause. A few yards away, under a big symmetrical maple in full leaf sat Dorothy with the baby on her lap. She was dressed very simply in white. There was a little sunlight upon her hair, a sheen of gold over her skin. She was looking down at the baby. Her expression----

Said Ursula: "Several of the great painters have tried to catch that expression. But they've failed."

Norman made no reply. He had not heard. All in an instant there had been revealed to him a whole new world--a view of man and woman--of woman--of s.e.x--its meaning so different from what he had believed and lived.

"What're you thinking about, Fred?" inquired his sister.

He shook his head, with a mysterious smile, and strolled away.

XXII

The baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well taken care of. Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and perhaps more than her former beauty--as the habit is with healthy women well taken care of. Norman's career continued to prosper, likewise according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of. In a world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must have some grave fault as its hidden cause. We mortals, who love to live at haphazard and to blame G.o.d or destiny or "bad luck" for our calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world and life. But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth--and, as we can't get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little less ignorant and ridiculous?

During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants it employed--that is to say, paid. But Norman was neither unreasonable nor impatient. Also, in his years of experience with his sister's housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his expectations from them. He had reached the conclusion that the women who were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful cla.s.ses were proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond the wagging of the tongue. He saw that Dorothy was making honest endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes time--much time.

He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother.

Before the baby was two years old, his belief was rewarded. Things began to run better--began to run well, even. Dorothy--a serious person, unhampered of a keen sense of humor, had taught herself the duties of her new position in much the same slow plodding way in which she had formerly made of herself a fair stenographer and a tolerable typewriter.

Mrs. Lowell had helped--and Ursula, too--and Norman not a little. But Dorothy, her husband discovered, was one of those who thoroughly a.s.similate what they take in--who make it over into part of themselves.

So, her manner of keeping house, of arranging the gardens, of bringing up the baby, of dressing herself, was peculiarly her own. It was not by any means the best imaginable way. It was even what many energetic, systematic and highly competent persons would speak contemptuously of.

But it satisfied Norman--and that was all Dorothy had in mind.

If those who have had any considerable opportunity to observe married life will forget what they have read in novels and will fix their minds on what they have observed at first hand, they will recognize the Norman marriage, with the husband and wife living together yet apart as not peculiar but of a rather common type. Neither Fred nor Dorothy had any especial reason on any given day to try to alter their relations; so the law of inertia a.s.serted itself and matters continued as they had begun.

It was, perhaps, a chance remark of Tetlow's that was the remote but efficient cause of a change, as the single small stone slipping high up on the mountain side results in a vast landslide into the valley miles below. Tetlow said one day, in connection with some estate they were settling:

"I've always pitied the only child. It must be miserably lonesome."