Told in a French Garden August, 1914

VI

THE DI­VORCEE'S STO­RY

ONE WOM­AN'S PHI­LOS­OPHY

THE TALE OF A MOD­ERN WIFE

As I look back, I re­mem­ber that the next night was one of the most try­ing of the week.

As we came down to din­ner we all had vi­sions of the de­struc­tion of Lou­vain, and the burn­ing of the fa­mous li­brary. It is hard enough to think of lives go­ing out; still, as the Doc­tor was so fond of say­ing, “man is born to die, and wom­an, too,” but that the great works of men, his be­quest to the com­ing gen­er­ations, should be wan­ton­ly de­stroyed, seemed even more hor­ri­ble, es­pe­cial­ly to those who love beau­ty, and the idea of the charred leaves of the li­brary fly­ing in the air above the his­toric city of catholic cul­ture, made us all feel as if we were sit­ting down to a fu­ner­al ser­vice rather than a very good din­ner.

Mat­ters were not made any gay­er be­cause An­gele, who was wait­ing on ta­ble, had rings round her eyes, which told of sleep­less nights. And why? We were mere spec­ta­tors. We had been in­ter­est­ed to dis­pute and look on. But she knew that some­where out there in the north­east her man was car­ry­ing a gun.

Yet all about us the coun­try was so love­ly and so tran­quil, hors­es were walk­ing the fields, and, even as we sat at din­ner, we could hear the voic­es and the heavy feet of the peas­ant wom­en as they went home from their work. The gar­den had nev­er been more beau­ti­ful than it was that evening, with the sil­ver light of the moon through the trees, and the smell of the fresh­ly wa­tered earth and flow­ers.

We had no doubt who was to con­tribute the sto­ry. The Di­vorcee was dressed with un­usu­al care for the role, and car­ried a big lace bag on her arm, and, as she leaned back in her chair, she pulled one of the big old fash­ioned can­dles in its deep glass to­ward her, and said with a ner­vous laugh:

“I shall have to ask you to let me read my sto­ry. You know I am not ac­cus­tomed to this sort of thing. It is re­al­ly my very 'first ap­pear­ance,' and I could not pos­si­bly tell it as the rest of you more ex­pe­ri­enced peo­ple can do,” and she took the manuscript out of her lace bag, and, set­tling her­self grace­ful­ly, un­rolled it. The Young­ster put a stool un­der her pret­ty feet, and the Doc­tor set a cush­ion be­hind her back, while the Jour­nal­ist, with a laugh, poured her a glass of wa­ter, and the Vi­olin­ist cer­emo­ni­ous­ly leaned over, and asked, “Shall I turn for you?”

She could not help laugh­ing, but it did not make her any the less ner­vous, or her voice any the less shaky as she be­gan:

* * * * *

It was af­ter din­ner on one of those rare oc­ca­sions when they dined alone to­geth­er.

They were tak­ing cof­fee in Mrs. Shat­tuck's es­pe­cial cor­ner of the draw­ing-​room, and she had just asked her hus­band to smoke.

She was lean­ing back com­fort­ably in a nest of cush­ions, in her very lat­est gown, with a most be­com­ing light falling on her from the tall, yel­low-​shad­ed lamp.

He was fac­ing her--astride his chair, in a po­si­tion man has loved since cre­ation.

He was just think­ing that his wife had nev­er looked hand­somer, fin­er, in fact, in all her life--quite the sat­is­fac­to­ry, all-​round, de­sir­able sort of a wom­an a man's wife ought to be.

She was won­der­ing if he would ev­er be any less at­trac­tive to all wom­en than he was now at forty-​two--or any bet­ter able to re­sist his own pow­er.

As she put her cof­fee cup back on the tiny ta­ble at her el­bow, he leaned for­ward, and picked up a book which lay open on a chair near him, and care­less­ly glanced at it.

“Schopen­hauer,” and he wrin­kled his brows and glanced half whim­si­cal­ly down the page. “I nev­er can get used to a wom­an read­ing that stuff--and in French, at that. If you took it up to per­fect your Ger­man there would be some sense in it.”

Mrs. Shat­tuck did not re­ply. When a mo­ment lat­er, she did speak it was to ig­nore his re­mark ut­ter­ly, and ask:

“The _Kaiser Wil­helm_ got off in good sea­son this morn­ing--speak­ing of Ger­man things?”

“Oh, yes,” was the in­dif­fer­ent re­ply, “at ten o'clock, quite prompt­ly.”

“I sup­pose she was com­fort­able, and that you ex­plained why I could not come?”

“Cer­tain­ly. One of your beast­ly head-​aches. She un­der­stood.”

“Thank you.”

Shat­tuck yawned lazi­ly, and changed the sub­ject, which did not seem to in­ter­est him.

“Do you mean to say,” he asked, still turn­ing the leaves of the book he held, “that this pleas­es you?”

“Not ex­act­ly.”

“Well, amus­es you? In­structs you, if you like that bet­ter?”

“No, I mean to say sim­ply--since you in­sist--that he speaks the truth, and there are some--even among wom­en--who must know the truth and abide by it.”

“Well, thank Heav­en,” said the man, pulling at his cigar, “that most wom­en are more emo­tion­al than in­tel­li­gent--as Na­ture meant them to be.”

Mrs. Shat­tuck ex­am­ined her dain­ti­ly pol­ished nails, rubbed them care­ful­ly on the palm of her hand, as wom­en have a trick of do­ing, and then pol­ished them on her lace hand­ker­chief, be­fore she said, “Yes, it is a pity that we are not all like that,--a very great pity--for our own sakes. Yet, un­luck­ily, some of us _will_ think.”

“But the think­ing wom­an is so rarely log­ical, so un­able to take life im­per­son­al­ly, that Schopen­hauer does her no good. He on­ly fills her mind with er­rors, mis­trust, un­hap­pi­ness.”

“You men al­ways ar­gue that way with wom­en--as if life were not the same for us as for you. Pass me the book. I wa­ger that I can open it at ran­dom, and that you can­not de­ny the truth of the first sen­tence I read.”

He passed her the book.

She took it, laid it open care­less­ly on her knees, bend­ing the cov­ers far back that it might stay open, and she gave her fin­ger tips a fi­nal rub with her hand­ker­chief be­fore she looked at the page. She paused a bit af­ter she glanced at it, then picked up the book and read: “'_L'homme est par Na­ture porte a l'in­con­stance dans l'amour, la femme a la fi­delite. L'amour de l'homme baisse d'une fa­con sen­si­ble a par­tir de l'in­stant ou il a obtenu sat­is­fac­tion: il sem­ble que toute autre femme ait plus d'at­trait que celle qu'il possede._'”

She laid the book down, but she did not look at him.

“Rub­bish,” was his re­mark.

“Yes, I know. You men al­ways find it so easy to say 'rub­bish' to all nat­ural truths which you pre­fer not to dis­cuss.”

“Well, my dear Nao­mi, it seems to me that if you are to ad­vo­cate Schopen­hauer, you must go the whole length with him. The fault is in Na­ture, and you must ac­cept it as in­evitable, and not kick against it.”

“I don't kick against Na­ture--as you put it--I kick against civ­iliza­tion, which makes laws re­gard­less of Na­ture, which de­lib­er­ate­ly shuts its eyes to all nat­ural truths in re­gard to the re­la­tions of men to wom­en,--and is there­fore forced to con­tin­ual­ly wink to avoid con­fess­ing its fol­ly.”

“Civ­iliza­tion seems to me to have done the best it could with a very dif­fi­cult prob­lem. It has not ac­tu­al­ly al­lowed dif­fer­ent codes of morals to men and wom­en, and it may have had to wink on that ac­count. Right there, in your Schopen­hauer, you have a pri­mal rea­son, that is, if you chose to fol­low your philoso­pher to the ex­tent of ac­tu­al­ly be­liev­ing that Na­ture has de­lib­er­ate­ly, from the be­gin­ning, pro­tect­ed wom­en against that sin of which so much is made, and to which she has, as de­lib­er­ate­ly, for eco­nom­ic rea­sons of her own, tempt­ed men.”

“I do be­lieve it, tru­ly.”

“You are no more char­ita­ble to­ward my sex than most wom­en are. Yet nei­ther your teach­er nor you may be right. A the­oret­ic ar­guer like Schopen­hauer makes good enough read­ing for calm minds, but he is bad for an emo­tion­al tem­per­ament, and, by Jove, Nao­mi, he was a bad ex­am­ple of his own phi­los­ophy.”

“My dear Dick, I am afraid I read Schopen­hauer be­cause I thought what he writes long be­fore I ev­er heard of him. I read him be­cause did I not find a clear log­ical mind go­ing the same way my mind will go, I might be trou­bled with doubts, and afraid that I was go­ing quite wrong.”

“Well, the deuce and all with a wom­an when she be­gins to read stuff like that is her in­abil­ity to gen­er­al­ize. You wom­en take ev­ery­thing home to your­selves. You try to deduct con­clu­sions from your own lives which men like Schopen­hauer have scanned the cen­turies for. The nat­ural course of your life could hard­ly have pro­vid­ed you with the pes­simism with which--I hope you will par­don my re­mark, my dear--you have treat­ed me sev­er­al times in the past few months. Cham­fort and Schopen­hauer did that. But these are not sub­jects a man dis­cuss­es eas­ily with his wife.”

“In­deed? Then that is sure­ly an er­ror of civ­iliza­tion. If a man can dis­cuss such mat­ters more eas­ily with a wom­an who is not his wife, it is be­cause there is no frank­ness in mar­riage. Dick, did it ev­er oc­cur to you that a man and wom­an, strong­ly at­tract­ed to­ward one an­oth­er, might live to­geth­er many years with­out un­der­stand­ing each oth­er?”

“God for­bid!”

“How eas­ily you say that!”

“I have heard that most wom­en think they are not un­der­stood, but I nev­er re­flect­ed on the mat­ter.”

“You and I have not trou­bled one an­oth­er much with our doubts and per­plex­ities.”

“You and I have been very hap­py to­geth­er--I hope.” There was a lit­tle pause be­fore the last two words, as if he had ex­pect­ed her to an­tic­ipate them with some­thing, and there was a half in­ter­rog­ative note in his voice. She made no re­sponse, so he went on, “I've sure­ly not been a hard mas­ter--and I hope I've not been self­ish. I know I've not been unlov­ing.”

“And I hope you've not suf­fered many dis­com­forts on my ac­count. I think, as wom­en go, I am fair­ly rea­son­able--or I have been.”

For some rea­son Shat­tuck seemed to find the cigar he was smok­ing most un­sat­is­fac­to­ry. Ei­ther it had been bro­ken, or he had un­con­scious­ly chewed the end--a thing which he de­test­ed--and there was a pause while he dis­card­ed the weed, and se­lect­ed a fresh one. He ap­peared to be re­flect­ing as he light­ed it, and if his mind could have been read, it would have prob­ably been dis­cov­ered that he was won­der­ing how it had hap­pened that the con­ver­sa­tion had tak­en this turn, and men­tal­ly curs­ing his own stu­pid­ity in mak­ing any re­marks on the Schopen­hauer. He was con­scious all the time that his wife was look­ing rather steadi­ly at him, and he knew that at least a con­ven­tion­al re­ply was ex­pect­ed of him.

“My dear girl,” he said, “I look back on ten very sat­is­fac­to­ry years of mar­ried life. You have been a mod­el wife, a charm­ing com­pan­ion--and if oc­ca­sion­al­ly it has oc­curred to me--just late­ly--that my wife has de­vel­oped rather sin­gu­lar, to say the least, un­flat­ter­ing ideas of life, why, you have such a bril­liant way of putting it, that I am more than half proud that you've the brains to hold such ideas, though they are a bit dis­con­cert­ing to me as a hus­band. I sup­pose the de­vel­op­ment is log­ical enough. You were al­ways, even as a girl, in­clined to mak­ing foot­notes. I sup­pose their present dar­ing is sim­ply the re­sult of our be­ing just a lit­tle old­er than we used to be. I sup­pose if we did not out­grow our il­lu­sions, the road to death would be too trag­ic.”

For a mo­ment she made no re­ply. Then, as if for the first time own­ing to the idea which had long been up­per­most in her mind, she said sud­den­ly: “The truth of the mat­ter is, that I re­al­ly be­lieve mar­riage is fool­ish. I do be­lieve that no man ev­er ap­proached it with­out re­gret­ting that civ­iliza­tion had made it nec­es­sary, and that many men would es­cape, at the very last mo­ment, if wom­en did not so rigid­ly hold them to their promis­es, and if, be­tween two ridicu­lous po­si­tions, mar­riage hav­ing been pushed near­est, had not be­come des­per­ate­ly in­evitable.”

“How ab­surd, Nao­mi, when you see the whole pro­ces­sion of men walk­ing,--ac­cord­ing to their dis­po­si­tions--calm­ly or ea­ger­ly to their fate ev­ery day.”

“Nev­er­the­less, I think the pre-​nup­tial con­fes­sions of a ma­jor­ity of men of our class, would prove that what I say is true.”

“Are you hint­ing that it was true in your case?”

“Per­haps.”

Shat­tuck gave an amused laugh. “Do you mean to say that you kept me to the point?”

“Not ex­act­ly. At that time I had an able bod­ied fa­ther who would have had to be dealt with. Be­sides, a man does not own up even to him­self--not al­ways--when he finds him­self face to face with the in­evitable. I am not speak­ing of what men talk about in such cas­es, or of what they do, but of what they feel,--of the fact that, in too many in­stances, Na­ture not hav­ing meant men for bondage, af­ter they have passed the Ru­bi­con to that spot from which the code of civ­ilized hon­or does not per­mit them to turn back, they usu­al­ly have a pe­ri­od of re­gret, and are forced to make a re­al ef­fort to face the Fu­ture,--to go on, in fact.”

The smile had died out of Shat­tuck's face and he said quite se­ri­ous­ly: “As far as we are con­cerned, Nao­mi, I have very dif­fer­ent rec­ol­lec­tions of the whole af­fair.”

“Have you? And yet, months be­fore we were mar­ried, I knew that it would not have bro­ken your heart if the wed­ding had not come off at all.”

“My dear, the mod­ern heart does not break eas­ily in this age. We are schooled to meet the ac­ci­dents of life with some phi­los­ophy.”

“And yet to have lost you then, would have killed me.”

Shat­tuck looked at her sharply, with, one might al­most have said, a new in­ter­est, but she was no longer look­ing at him. She went on, hur­ried­ly: “You loved me, of course. I was of your world. I was a wom­an that oth­er men liked, and there­fore a de­sir­able wom­an. I was of good fam­ily--al­to­geth­er your so­cial equal, in fact, quite the sort of wom­an it be­came you to mar­ry. I pleased you--and I loved you.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he said. “In ten years, I doubt if you have ev­er made so frank a dec­la­ra­tion as that--in words.” He was won­der­ing, if, af­ter all, she were go­ing to de­vel­op in­to an emo­tion­al wom­an, and his heart gave a quick leap at the very thought--for there are hours when a wom­an who runs too much to head has a man at a cru­el dis­ad­van­tage.

“Things are so much hard­er, so much more com­plex for a wom­an,” she went on.

“For the pro­tec­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty?”

“Per­haps. Still, it is not al­ways pleas­ant to be a wom­an,--and yet think; a wom­an whose rea­son has been mis­tak­en­ly de­vel­oped at the ex­pense of her ca­pac­ity to en­joy be­ing a wom­an, and who is forced at the same time to en­counter the laws of Na­ture, and pay at the same time, the penal­ty of be­ing a wom­an, and the penal­ty of knowl­edge. For, just so sure­ly as we live, we must en­counter love.--”

“You might take it out,” in­ter­rupt­ed the hus­band, “in feel­ing flat­tered that it takes so much to con­quer such as you.”

“So we might, but that, once con­quered, nei­ther man nor Na­ture has any fur­ther use for us, and re­gret, like art, is long. Not even you can de­ny,” she ex­claimed, sit­ting up in some ex­cite­ment, and let­ting her cush­ions fall in a mess all about her, “that life is very un­fair to wom­en.”

“Well, I don't see that. Phys­ical­ly it is a lit­tle rough on you, but there are com­pen­sa­tions.”

“I have nev­er been able to dis­cov­er them. Love it­self is hard on a wom­an. It seems to stir a man's fac­ul­ties healthi­ly. They seem the stronger and more fit for it. It does not seem to up­root a man's whole be­ing. Does it serve wom­en in that way?”

“I bear wit­ness that it makes some of you deuced­ly hand­some. And I have heard that it makes some of you--good.”

“Yes, as chas­tise­ment does. No, Life seems to have ad­just­ed mat­ters be­tween men and wom­en very bad­ly, very un­just­ly.”

“And yet, as this life is the on­ly one we know we must ad­just our­selves to it as we find it.”

“No, no. We had bet­ter have ac­cept­ed the thing as Na­ture gave it to us. We came in­to this world like beasts--why aren't we con­tent to live like beasts, and make no pre­tens­es? Wom­en would have noth­ing to ex­pect then, and there'd be no such thing as bro­ken hearts. In spite of all the pol­ish of civ­iliza­tion, man is sim­ply bent on con­quest. Wom­an is on­ly one phase of the chase to him--a chase in which ev­ery ac­tive vir­ile man is oc­cu­pied from his cra­dle to his grave. You are the con­querors. We are sim­ply the con­quered.”

Shat­tuck tried to make his voice light, as he said: “Not al­ways un­hap­py ones, I fan­cy.”

“I sup­pose all men flat­ter them­selves that way, and ar­gue that prob­ably the Sabine wom­en pre­ferred their fate to no fate at all.”

“Don't be bit­ter on so old and im­per­son­al a top­ic, Nao­mi. It is the law of life that one must give, and one must take. That the emo­tions dif­fer does not prove that one is bet­ter than the oth­er.”

Shat­tuck took a turn up and down the long room, not quite at ease with him­self.

Mrs. Shat­tuck seemed to be think­ing. As he passed her, he stopped, picked up her cush­ions, and re-​ar­ranged them about her, with an idle ca­ress by the way, a kiss gen­tly dropped on the in­side of her white wrist.

She fol­lowed his ev­ery move­ment with a strange spec­ula­tive look in her eyes, al­most as if he were some new and strange an­imal that she was study­ing for the first time.

When she spoke again, it was to go on as if she had not been in­ter­rupt­ed, “It seems to me that man comes out of a great pas­sion just as good as new, while a wom­an is shat­tered--in a moral sense--and nev­er ful­ly re­cov­ers her­self.”

Shat­tuck's back was to­ward her when he replied. “Sor­ry to spoil any more il­lu­sions, dear child, but how about the long list of men who are an­nu­al­ly ru­ined by it? The men in the pris­ons, the men who kill them­selves, the men who hang for it?”

“Those are crimes. I am not talk­ing of the crim­inal class­es, but of the world in which nor­mal peo­ple live.”

“Our set,” he laughed, “but that is not the whole world, alas!”

“I know that men--well bred, cul­ti­vat­ed, re­fined, even hon­or­able men,--seem to be able to re­peat ev­ery emo­tion of life. A wom­an scales the heights but once. Hence it must de­pend, in the case of wom­en ca­pa­ble of deep love--on the men whether the re­la­tion in­to which mar­riage be­trays them be de­cent or in­de­cent. What I should like to be able to dis­cov­er is--what pro­vi­sion does ei­ther man or civ­iliza­tion pro­pose to make for the wom­an whom Fate, in wan­ton irony, re­duces, even in mar­riage, to the self-​con­sid­ered lev­el of the girl in the street?”

There was amaze­ment--even a fore­bod­ing--on Shat­tuck's face as he paused in his walk, and, for the first time speak­ing anx­ious­ly ejac­ulat­ed, “I swear I don't fol­low you!”

She went on as if she had not been in­ter­rupt­ed, as if she had some­thing to say which had to be said, as if she were rea­son­ing it out for her­self: “Take my case. I don't claim that it is un­com­mon. I do claim that I was not the wom­an for the sit­ua­tion. I was an on­ly child. My fa­ther's mar­riage had not been hap­py. I was brought up by a dis­ap­point­ed man on phi­los­ophy and pes­simism.”

“Old scep­tics, and mod­ern scoffers. I re­mem­ber it well.”

“Be­fore I was out of my teens, I had im­bibed a mis­trust for all emo­tions. Per­haps you did not know that? You may have thought, be­cause they were not all on the out­side, that I had none. My poor fa­ther had hoped, with his teach­ings, to save me from fu­ture mis­ery. He had prob­ably thought to spare me the com­mon­place sor­rows of love. But he could not.”

“There is one thing, my child, that the pass­ing gen­er­ation can­not do for its heirs--live for them--luck­ily. Why, you might as well for­bid a rose to blos­som by word of mouth, as try to thwart na­ture in a beau­ti­ful healthy wom­an.”

“It seems to me that to bring up a wom­an as I was brought up on­ly pre­pares her to take the dis­tem­per the quick­er.”

“I do not re­mem­ber that of you. But I do know that no wom­an was ev­er wooed as hot­ly as you were--or ev­er--I swear it--more ar­dent­ly de­sired. No wom­an ev­er led a man the chase you led me. If ev­er in those days you were as anx­ious for my love as you have said you were this evening, no one would have guessed it, least of all I.”

“My rea­son had al­ready taught me that mine was but the com­mon fate of all wom­en: that life was de­mand­ing of me the usu­al trib­ute to pos­ter­ity: that the sweet­ness of the emo­tion was Na­ture's trick to make it en­durable. But ac­cord­ing to Na­ture's eter­nal plan, my heart could not lis­ten to my head--it beat so loud when you were by, it could not hear, per­haps. But there was some­thing of my fa­ther's phi­los­ophy left in me, and when I was alone it would speak, and be heard, too. Even when I be­lieved in you--be­cause I want­ed to--and half hoped that all my teach­ing was wrong, I made a bar­gain with my­self. I told my­self, quite calm­ly, that I knew per­fect­ly well all the pos­si­bil­ities of the fu­ture. That if I went for­ward with you, I went for­ward de­lib­er­ate­ly with open eyes, know­ing what, log­ical­ly, I might ex­pect to find in the fu­ture. Ig­no­rance--that bliss­ful com­fort of so many wom­en,--was de­nied me. Still, the spell of Na­ture was up­on me, and for a time I dreamed that a depth of pas­sion­ate love like mine, a life of loy­al de­vo­tion might wrap one man round, and keep him safe--might in fact, work a mir­acle--and make one polyg­amous man monog­amous. But, even while that hope was in my heart, rea­son rose up and mocked it, bid­ding me ad­vance in­to the Fu­ture at my per­il. I did it, but I made a bar­gain with my­self, I agreed to abide the con­se­quences--and to abide them calm­ly.”

“And dur­ing all those days when I sup­posed we were so near to­geth­er--you showed me noth­ing of this that was in your heart.”

“Men and wom­en know very rarely any­thing of the great strug­gles that go on in the hearts of one an­oth­er. Be­sides, I knew how eas­ily you would re­ply--nat­ural­ly. We are all on the de­fen­sive in this life. It was with things deep­er than words that I was deal­ing--the things one _does_--not says. Even in the ear­ly days of our en­gage­ment I knew that I was not as es­sen­tial to you as you were to me. Life held oth­er in­ter­ests for you. Even the flat­tery of oth­er wom­en still had its charm for you. Young as I was, I said to my­self: 'If you mar­ry this man--with your eyes open--blame your­self, not him, if you suf­fer.' I do be­lieve that I have been able to do that.”

Shat­tuck was astride his chair again, his el­bows on the back, his chin in his hands. He no longer re­spond­ed. Words were dan­ger­ous. His lips were pressed close to­geth­er, and there was a long deep line be­tween his eyes.

“My love for you ab­sorbed ev­ery oth­er emo­tion of my life. But I seemed to lack some of the qual­ities that aid to rec­on­cile oth­er wives to life. I seemed to be with­out moth­er-​love. My chil­dren were dear to me on­ly be­cause they were yours. The ma­ter­nal pas­sion, which in so many wom­en is the ab­sorb­ing emo­tion of life, was de­nied me. My chil­dren were to me mere­ly the trib­ute to pos­ter­ity which Life had de­mand­ed of me as the penal­ty of your love--noth­ing more. I must be sin­gu­lar­ly un­fit­ted for mar­riage, be­cause, when the hour came in which I felt that I was no longer your wife, your chil­dren seemed no longer mine. They mere­ly rep­re­sent­ed the next gen­er­ation--born of me. I know that this is very shock­ing. I have be­come used to it,--and, it is the truth. I have not blamed you, I could not--and be rea­son­able. No man can be oth­er than Na­ture plans or per­mits, but how I have pitied my­self! I have been through the tem­pest alone. In spite of rea­son,--in spite of phi­los­ophy--I have suf­fered from jeal­ousy, from shame, from rage, from self con­tempt. But that is all past now.”

She had not raised her voice, which seemed as with­out feel­ing as it was with­out em­pha­sis. She care­ful­ly ex­am­ined her hand­ker­chief cor­ner by cor­ner, and he no­ticed for the first time how thin her hands had be­come.

“Nat­ural­ly,” she went on in that col­or­less voice, “my first im­pulse was to be done with life. But I could not bring my­self to that, much as I de­sired it. It would have left you such a wretched mem­ory of me. You could nev­er have par­doned me the scan­dal--and I felt that I had at least the right to leave you a de­cent rec­ol­lec­tion of me.”

Shat­tuck's head fell for­ward on his arms.--The idea of de­nial or protest did not oc­cur to him.

The steady voice went monotonous­ly on. “I could not bear to hum­ble you in the eyes of oth­ers even by forc­ing you to face a scan­dal. I could not bear to hum­ble you in your own eyes by let­ting you sus­pect that I knew the truth. I could not bring my­self to dis­turb the out­ward re­spectabil­ity of your life by in­ter­rupt­ing its out­ward calm. To be ab­so­lute­ly hon­est--though I had lost you, I could not bring my­self to give you up,--as I felt I must, if I let any one dis­cov­er--most of all you--what I knew. So, like a cow­ard, I lived on, be­com­ing grad­ual­ly ac­cus­tomed to the idea that my day was past, but know­ing that the mo­ment I was forced to speak, I would be forced to move on out of your life. Sin­gu­lar­ly enough, as I grew calm, I grew to re­spect this oth­er wom­an. I could not blame her for lov­ing you. I end­ed by ad­mir­ing her. I had known her so well--she was such a proud wom­an! I looked back at my mar­riage and saw the af­fair as it re­al­ly was. I had not _sold_ my­self to you ex­act­ly--I had loved you too much to bar­gain in that way; nev­er­the­less, the mar­riage had been a bar­gain. In ex­change for your promise to pro­tect and pro­vide for me,--to feed me, clothe me, share your for­tune with me, and give me your name, I had giv­en you my­self,--open­ly sanc­tioned by the law, of course--I was too great a cow­ard to have done it oth­er­wise, in spite of the fact that the law gives that same per­mis­sion to al­most any one who asks for it.”

“Nao­mi,” he groaned from his cov­ered mouth, “what ghast­ly phi­los­ophy.”

“Isn't that the mar­riage law? How much bet­ter am I af­ter all than the poor girl in the street, who is forced to it by mis­ery? To be sure, I be­lieve there is some far­ci­cal phrase in the bar­gain about promis­ing to love none oth­er,--a bare-​faced at­tempt to out­wit Na­ture,--at which Na­ture laughs. Yet this oth­er wom­an, proud, high-​mind­ed, un­selfish, hith­er­to above re­proach, had giv­en her­self for love alone--with ev­ery­thing to lose and noth­ing to gain. I have come to doubt my­self. I have had my day. For years it was an en­vi­able one. No wom­an can hope for more. What right have I to stand in the way of an­oth­er wom­an's hap­pi­ness? A hap­pi­ness no one can val­ue bet­ter than I, who so long wore it in se­cu­ri­ty. I bore my chil­dren in peace, with the di­vine con­so­la­tion of your de­vo­tion about me. What right have I to de­ny an­oth­er wom­an the same joy?”

Shat­tuck sprang to his feet.

“It's not true!” he gasped. “It's not true!”

The wom­an nev­er even raised her eyes. She went on care­ful­ly in­spect­ing the filmy bit of lace in her hands.

“It _is_ true,” she replied. “Nev­er mind how I dis­cov­ered it. I know it. That is why she has gone abroad alone. I did not speak un­til I had to. I am a cow­ard, but not enough of one to bear the thought of her alone in a for­eign coun­try with mind and emo­tions cloud­ed. I may be cow­ard­ly enough to wish that I had nev­er found it out,--I am not cow­ard enough to keep silent any longer.”

A tor­rent of words rushed to the man's lips, but he was too wise to make ex­cus­es. Yet there were ex­cus­es. Any fair-​mind­ed judge would have said so. But he knew bet­ter than to think that for one mo­ment they would be ex­cus­es in the mind of this wom­an. Be­sides, the first man's ex­cuse for the first sin has nev­er been viewed with much re­spect un­der the mod­ern civ­iliza­tion.

He felt her slow­ly rise to her feet, and when he raised his head to look at her--not yet ful­ly re­al­iz­ing what had hap­pened to him--all emo­tion seemed to have be­come so for­eign to her face, that he felt as if she were al­ready a stranger to him.

She took a last look round the room. Her eyes seemed to de­vour ev­ery de­tail.

“I shall find means to give you your free­dom at once.”

“You will ac­tu­al­ly leave me--go away?”

“Can we two re­main to­geth­er now?”

“But your chil­dren?”

“Your chil­dren, Dick--I have for­got­ten that I have any. I have had my life. You have still yours to live.”

She swept by him down the long room, ev­ery­thing in which was so close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with her. Be­fore she reached the door, he was there--and his back against it. She stopped, but she did not look at him. If she could have read the truth in his face, it would have told her that she had nev­er been loved as she was at that mo­ment. All that she had been in her loy­al­ty, her no­bil­ity, was so much a part of this man's life. What, com­pared to that, were pet­ty sins, or big ones? He saw the past as a drown­ing man sees the panora­ma of his ex­is­tence. Yet he knew that ev­ery­thing he could say would be pow­er­less to move her.

It was use­less to re­mind her of their hap­py years to­geth­er. They could nev­er be hap­py again with this be­tween them. It would be equal­ly use­less to tell her that this oth­er wom­an had known, but too well, that he would nev­er desert his wife for her. Had he not be­trayed her?

Of what use to tell her how he had re­pent­ed his fol­ly, that he could nev­er un­der­stand it him­self? There were the facts, and Na­ture, and his wife's phi­los­ophy against him.

And he had dared be gay the mo­ment the steam­er slid in­to the chan­nel! Was that on­ly this morn­ing? It seemed to be in the last cen­tu­ry.

She ap­proached, and stretched her hand to­ward the door.

He did not move.

“Don't stop me,” she plead­ed. “Don't make it any hard­er than it is. Let me take with me the con­so­la­tion of a de­cent life to­geth­er--a de­cent life de­cent­ly sev­ered.”

He made one last ap­peal--he opened his arms wide to her.

She shrank back with a shud­der, cry­ing out that he should spare her her own con­tempt--that he should leave her the pow­er to seek peace--and her voice had such a tone of ter­ror, as she re­coiled from him, that he felt how pow­er­less any protest would be.

He stepped aside.

With­out look­ing at him she quick­ly opened the door and passed out.

* * * * *

The Di­vorcee ner­vous­ly rolled up her manuscript.

The usu­al laugh was not forth­com­ing. No one dared. Men can't rough-​house that kind of a wom­an.

Af­ter a mo­ment's si­lence the Crit­ic spoke up. “You were right to _read_ that sto­ry. It is not the sort of thing that lends it­self to nar­rat­ing. Of course you might have act­ed it out, but you were wise not to.”

“I can't help it--got to say it,” said the Jour­nal­ist: “What a hor­rid wom­an!”

The Di­vorcee looked at him in amaze­ment. “How can you say that?” she ex­claimed. “I thought I had made her so rea­son­able. Just what all wom­en ought to be, and what none of us are.”

“Thank God for that,” said the Jour­nal­ist. “I'd as lief live in a world cre­at­ed and run by George Bernard Shaw as in one where wom­en were like that.”

“Come, come,” in­ter­rupt­ed the Doc­tor, who had been eye­ing her pro­file with a cu­ri­ous half amused ex­pres­sion, all through the read­ing: “Don't let us get on that sub­ject to-​night. A sto­ry is a sto­ry. You have asked, and you have re­ceived. None of you seem to re­al­ly like any sto­ry but your own, and I must con­fess that among us, we are putting forth a strange bag­gage.”

“On the con­trary,” said the Crit­ic, “I think we are do­ing pret­ty well for a crowd of am­ateurs.”

“You are not an am­ateur,” laughed the Jour­nal­ist, “and yours was the worst yet.”

“I de­ny it,” said the Crit­ic. “Mine had re­al lit­er­ary qual­ity, and a very dra­mat­ic cli­max.”

“Oh, well, if death is dra­mat­ic--per­haps. You are the on­ly one up to date who has killed his hero­ine.”

“No sto­ry is fin­ished un­til the hero­ine is dead,” said the Jour­nal­ist. “This wom­an,--I'll bet she had an­oth­er ro­mance.”

“Did she?” asked the Crit­ic of the Di­vorcee, who was still ner­vous­ly rolling her manuscript in both hands.

“I don't know. How should I? And if I did I shouldn't tell you. It isn't a true sto­ry, of course.” And she rose from her chair and walked away in­to the moon­light.

“Do you mean to say,” ejac­ulat­ed the Vi­olin­ist, who ad­mired her tremen­dous­ly, “that she made that up in the imag­ina­tion she car­ries around un­der that pret­ty fluffy hair? I'd rather that it were true--that she had picked it up some­where.”

As we be­gan to pre­pare to go in, the Doc­tor looked down the path to where the Di­vorcee was still stand­ing. Af­ter a mo­ment's hes­ita­tion he took her lace scarf from the back of her chair, and strolled af­ter her. The Sculp­tor shrugged his shoul­ders with such a droll ex­pres­sion that we all had to smile. Then we went in­doors.

“Well,” said the Doc­tor, as he joined her--she told me about it af­ter­wards--“was that the way it hap­pened?”

“No, no,” replied the Di­vorcee, petu­lant­ly. “That is not a bit the way it hap­pened. That is the way I wish it had hap­pened. Oh, no. I was brought up to be­lieve in the pro­pri­etary rights in mar­riage, and I did what I thought be­came a wom­an­ly wom­an. I as­sert­ed my rights, and made a com­mon or gar­den row.”

The Doc­tor laughed, as she stamped her foot at him.

“Par­don--par­don,” said he. “I was on­ly go­ing to say 'Thank God.' You know I like it best that way.”

“I wish I had not told the old sto­ry,” she said pet­tish­ly. “It serves me quite right. Now I sup­pose they've got all sorts of queer no­tions in their heads.”

“Non­sense,” said the Doc­tor. “All au­thors, you know, run the risk of get­ting mixed up in their ro­mances--think of Char­lotte Bronte.”

“I'm not an au­thor, and I am go­ing to bed,--to re­pent of my fol­ly,” and she sailed in­to the house, leav­ing the Doc­tor gaz­ing quizzi­cal­ly af­ter her. Be­fore she was out of hear­ing, he called to her: “I say, you haven't changed a bit since '92.”

She heard but she did not an­swer.