A Modern Madonna. Caroline Abbot Stanley
no, I'll stay—of course," he replied. "I couldn't go off for a good time and leave you here sick. It wouldn't be right. But it is unfortunate, as I was saying. You know I am specially fond of yachting, and—"
"And I want you to go. I really would much rather you would."
He made some faint opposition, which only stimulated her determination that he should take the trip. At last he said, "Well—I don't know—perhaps I will after all, just to please Dillingham. He was anxious that I should go to even up the party." And Margaret thought quickly, "Then they did not even expect me to go."
"You are sure you won't be lonely without anybody to talk to?"
"I will let the sea talk to me," Margaret said.
The sea talked to her a good deal that summer. When the Baltimore party was gone and she was well enough to go about, Victor had formed the acquaintance of certain gentlemen who were fond of cards and pool, and she had many leisure hours for communion with it. What it told her she never repeated. If she said anything to it in reply, it was with silent speech, until one day as she stood looking out over its lonely wastes, she suddenly clasped her hands and pressed them to her breast, whispering brokenly, "He is—so different—from father!"
They went back in September—Margaret gladly. In their own home they would fall back into the blissful life that had been theirs at first. Somehow it seemed to be slipping away from them. A hotel was no place to live. When they were at home again she would try hard to get it back. Why should her husband be less thoughtful, less tender of her now than then—now when she needed it more? She had heard of married people growing apart—even when there seemed to be no special trouble between them. Oh, how wretched that would be! how intolerable! They must not do that! She would make his home bright and attractive. She had read that it was always a woman's fault if her husband's interest waned—it was because she did not meet him at the door with a smile, and have his slippers warming on the hearth, and wear a white dress with a red rose at the belt, and another in her hair. But then one could hardly remember all the things the books said women must do to hold the love their husbands had poured out upon them so unstintedly before marriage.
One cold, wet, disagreeable night in October Margaret had a fire lighted in the library grate. It was the first one on their own hearth, and she had not yet got over the charm of "first things." It seemed to her when they came into the room that she had never seen a sweeter, more attractive place.
"Do you remember what Holmes says his idea of comfort is?" she asked, turning to Victor brightly as they sat down before the glowing coals.
"No. What is it?"
"'Four feet on a fender.' Isn't that epigrammatic and—and full of tenderness?"
"It is epigrammatic, all right. I can't quite see the tenderness. You will have to explain."
She shook her head, with the ghost of a smile.
"There are some things that can't be explained, Victor—the humor of a joke, for instance. If you don't see it, it isn't there—for you."
Somehow her reply embarrassed him. He felt that he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and he could not see why.
"You quote Holmes a good deal, don't you?"
"Yes. He says such bright things." And she added eagerly, "Victor, let us read some together this winter. Father and I used to have such good times reading together."
Victor put up his hand as if to ward off an attack.
"Really, Margaret, don't you think you are asking a little too much of me? to settle down to evenings of reading the Autocrat! If you would suggest having some people in to play cards now."
"Very well," she returned, quietly, "we will have some people in to play cards then."
"I am afraid I can't count upon all my evenings," he said, hastily. "I find that things have accumulated in my absence, and I will have to be at the office occasionally at night. Not often, but sometimes."
"I should not want to interfere with your business, Victor, but—"
"Well? What's the rest of it?"
"I was going to say that the men I have known best have been able to work enough in the day and give their evenings to their families."
She paused a moment during which she thought, "I certainly have a right to say this—and it ought to be said. I am not complaining. We ought to plan out our life together." Aloud she continued, "That has always seemed to me the right way. I think so much depends now upon our starting right."
He rose hastily. "We will talk that over some other time. I really have to go down to-night. I have promised to meet a man. You don't object? You will not be afraid?"
"I shall not be afraid," she said.
She went to the door with him and stood looking after him until he disappeared. When she came back she was shivering a little. She sat before the fire and looked into its depths. Then she raised the skirt of her dainty house-gown and rested her slippered feet on the brass that was burnished until it shone.
"Two feet on a fender," she said with a dreary little smile.
She reasoned with herself afterwards. "It may not be the best way to do—to live—" she told herself, "but I hope I am womanly enough not to be jealous of my husband's business."
Some months later Mrs. Kirtley remarked to her husband, "Victor De Jarnette must be doing very well in his business. Margaret tells me that he has to go to the office almost every night of late, there is such a rush of work. Poor child! She is not well, and is nervous at being alone, though she is very brave about it. I think he should be at home more just now—a man of his means—even if he has to sacrifice his business somewhat. I hope he will not become too mercenary."
"I hardly think he will," the Judge responded, dryly. But with the loyalty of one man for another, even when that other is unworthy, he said no more. Inwardly he was groaning, "Just as I feared. Too bad! That young man had a good case and he is letting it go by default. Margaret is not the woman to stand this when she finds out."
It is an evil hour for a man when a woman takes to her hungry heart a substitute for the affection he withholds, but when the thing substituted is an innocent thing it is a godsend to the woman. A plant if denied the light on one side will turn this way and that. When it cannot get it in any direction it dies.
As the months went by, Margaret passed through deep and changing experiences. First there was a period of bewilderment. What had she done that should make this difference in Victor? He had been her persistent wooer before marriage. Was the case now to be reversed? Her pride revolted, but her instinct told her that if the fire on their domestic altar was not to die out she would be the one to fan the flame. She deliberately and with purpose aforethought set herself to hold her husband's love. It seemed to her almost humiliating that she should have to fight this fight—but how could she bear a loveless home?
That she was only in part successful she could not fail to see, the plain truth being that Victor De Jarnette was restive under the bonds that bound him to one woman and a home, being of that masculine type which desires the pleasures of the married state and the liberty of bachelorhood. He did not intend to be unkind, but he intended to have his liberty. And the two involved a nice adjustment that, as yet, Margaret had not learned to comprehend.
To this period of bewilderment and baffled endeavor succeeded one of apathy. Her sensibilities seemed blunted. What was at first a sharp, intolerable pain became later a dull ache. Nothing seemed to matter much. Mrs. Kirtley was concerned, and told her she needed a tonic, but Margaret shook her head. It was a comfort, anyway, to find that she did not care as much as she did at first. That, she told herself, would have been unbearable—that would have been against nature. Perhaps she would get so after a while that she would not care at all. She had seen some married people who appeared entirely indifferent to each other—the woman led her life and the man his. And yet they got along at least respectably. … After all, she thought with a slight shiver, it must be a gray life—she had not thought that hers