SYLVIA'S MARRIAGE

SYLVIA'S MARRIAGE


by: UPTON SINCLAIR


BOOK I

SYLVIA AS WIFE

1. I am telling the story of Sylvia Castleman. I should prefer to
tell it without mention of myself; but it was written in the book of
fate that I should be a decisive factor in her life, and so her
story pre-supposes mine. I imagine the impatience of a reader, who
is promised a heroine out of a romantic and picturesque "society"
world, and finds himself beginning with the autobiography of a
farmer's wife on a solitary homestead in Manitoba. But then I
remember that Sylvia found me interesting. Putting myself in her
place, remembering her eager questions and her exclamations, I am
able to see myself as a heroine of fiction.

I was to Sylvia a new and miraculous thing, a self-made woman. I
must have been the first "common" person she had ever known
intimately. She had seen us afar off, and wondered vaguely about us,
consoling herself with the reflection that we probably did not know
enough to be unhappy over our sad lot in life. But here I was,
actually a soul like herself; and it happened that I knew more than
she did, and of things she desperately needed to know. So all the
luxury, power and prestige that had been given to Sylvia Castleman
seemed as nothing beside Mary Abbott, with her modern attitude and
her common-sense.

My girlhood was spent upon a farm in Iowa. My father had eight
children, and he drank. Sometimes he struck me; and so it came about
that at the age of seventeen I ran away with a boy of twenty who
worked upon a neighbour's farm. I wanted a home of my own, and Tom
had some money saved up. We journeyed to Manitoba, and took out a
homestead, where I spent the next twenty years of my life in a
hand-to-hand struggle with Nature which seemed simply incredible to
Sylvia when I told her of it.

The man I married turned out to be a petty tyrant. In the first five
years of our life he succeeded in killing the love I had for him;
but meantime I had borne him three children, and there was nothing
to do but make the best of my bargain. I became to outward view a
beaten drudge; yet it was the truth that never for an hour did I
give up. When I lost what would have been my fourth child, and the
doctor told me that I could never have another, I took this for my
charter of freedom, and made up my mind to my course; I would raise
the children I had, and grow up with them, and move out into life
when they did.

This was when I was working eighteen hours a day, more than half of
it by lamp-light, in the darkness of our Northern winters. When the
accident came, I had been doing the cooking for half a dozen men,
who were getting in the wheat upon which our future depended. I fell
in my tracks, and lost my child; yet I sat still and white while the
men ate supper, and afterwards I washed up the dishes. Such was my
life in those days; and I can see before me the face of horror with
which Sylvia listened to the story. But these things are common in
the experience of women who live upon pioneer farms, and toil as the
slave-woman has toiled since civilization began.

We won out, and my husband made money. I centred my energies upon
getting school-time for my children; and because I had resolved that
they should not grow ahead of me, I sat up at night, and studied
their books. When the oldest boy was ready for high-school, we moved
to a town, where my husband had bought a granary business. By that
time I had become a physical wreck, with a list of ailments too
painful to describe. But I still had my craving for knowledge, and
my illness was my salvation, in a way--it got me a hired girl, and
time to patronize the free library.

I had never had any sort of superstition or prejudice, and when I
got into the world of books, I began quickly to find my way. I
travelled into by-paths, of course; I got Christian Science badly,
and New Thought in a mild attack. I still have in my mind what the
sober reader would doubtless consider queer kinks; for instance, I
still practice "mental healing," in a form, and I don't always tell
my secret thoughts about Theosophy and Spiritualism. But almost at
once I worked myself out of the religion I had been taught, and away
from my husband's politics, and the drugs of my doctors. One of the
first subjects I read about was health; I came upon a book on
fasting, and went away upon a visit and tried it, and came back home
a new woman, with a new life before me.

In all of these matters my husband fought me at every step. He
wished to rule, not merely my body, but my mind, and it seemed as if
every new thing that I learned was an additional affront to him. I
don't think I was rendered disagreeable by my culture; my only
obstinacy was in maintaining the right of the children to do their
own thinking. But during this time my husband was making money, and
filling his life with that. He remained in his every idea the
money-man, an active and bitter leader of the forces of greed in our
community; and when my studies took me to the inevitable end, and I
joined the local of the Socialist party in our town, it was to him
like a blow in the face. He never got over it, and I think that if
the children had not been on my side, he would have claimed the
Englishman's privilege of beating me with a stick not thicker than
his thumb. As it was, he retired into a sullen hypochondria, which
was so pitiful that in the end I came to regard him as not
responsible.

I went to a college town with my three children, and when they were
graduated, having meantime made sure that I could never do anything
but torment my husband, I set about getting a divorce. I had helped
to lay the foundation of his fortune, cementing it with my blood, I
might say, and I could fairly have laid claim to half what he had
brought from the farm; but my horror of the parasitic woman had
come to be such that rather than even seem to be one, I gave up
everything, and went out into the world at the age of forty-five to
earn my own living. My children soon married, and I would not be a
burden to them; so I came East for a while, and settled down quite
unexpectedly into a place as a field-worker for a child-labour
committee.

You may think that a woman so situated would not have been apt to
meet Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver, _n�e_ Castleman, and to be chosen for
her bosom friend; but that would only be because you do not know the
modern world. We have managed to get upon the consciences of the
rich, and they invite us to attend their tea-parties and disturb
their peace of mind. And then, too, I had a peculiar hold upon
Sylvia; when I met her I possessed the key to the great mystery of
her life. How that had come about is a story in itself, the thing I
have next to tell.

2. It happened that my arrival in New York from the far West
coincided with Sylvia's from the far South; and that both fell at a
time when there were no wars or earthquakes or football games to
compete for the front page of the newspapers. So everybody was
talking about the prospective wedding. The fact that the Southern
belle had caught the biggest prize among the city's young
millionaires was enough to establish precedence with the city's
subservient newspapers, which had proceeded to robe the grave and
punctilious figure of the bridegroom in the garments of King
Cophetua. The fact that the bride's father was the richest man in
his own section did not interfere with this--for how could
metropolitan editors be expected to have heard of the glories of
Castleman Hall, or to imagine that there existed a section of
America so self-absorbed that its local favourite would not feel
herself exalted in becoming Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver?

What the editors knew about Castleman Hall was that they wired for
pictures, and a man was sent from the nearest city to "snap" this
unknown beauty; whereupon her father chased the presumptuous
photographer and smashed his camera with a cane. So, of course, when
Sylvia stepped out of the train in New York, there was a whole
battery of cameras awaiting her, and all the city beheld her image
the next day.

The beginning of my interest in this "belle" from far South was when
I picked up the paper at my breakfast table, and found her gazing at
me, with the wide-open, innocent eyes of a child; a child who had
come from some fairer, more gracious world, and brought the memory
of it with her, trailing her clouds of glory. She had stepped from
the train into the confusion of the roaring city, and she stood,
startled and frightened, yet, I thought, having no more real idea of
its wickedness and horror than a babe in arms. I read her soul in
that heavenly countenance, and sat looking at it, enraptured, dumb.
There must have been thousands, even in that metropolis of Mammon,
who loved her from that picture, and whispered a prayer for her
happiness.

I can hear her laugh as I write this. For she would have it that I
was only one more of her infatuated lovers, and that her clouds of
glory were purely stage illusion. She knew exactly what she was
doing with those wide-open, innocent eyes! Had not old Lady Dee,
most cynical of worldlings, taught her how to use them when she was
a child in pig-tails? To be sure she had been scared when she
stepped off the train, and strange men had shoved cameras under her
nose. It was almost as bad as being assassinated! But as to her
heavenly soul--alas, for the blindness of men, and of sentimental
old women, who could believe in a modern "society" girl!

I had supposed that I was an emancipated woman when I came to New
York. But one who has renounced the world, the flesh and the devil,
knowing them only from pictures in magazines and Sunday supplements;
such a one may find that he has still some need of fasting and
praying. The particular temptation which overcame me was this
picture of the bride-to-be. I wanted to see her, and I went and
stood for hours in a crowd of curious women, and saw the wedding
party enter the great Fifth Avenue Church, and discovered that my
Sylvia's hair was golden, and her eyes a strange and wonderful
red-brown. And this was the moment that fate had chosen to throw
Claire Lepage into my arms, and give me the key to the future of
Sylvia's life.

3. I am uncertain how much I should tell about Claire Lepage. It is
a story which is popular in a certain sort of novel, but I have no
wish for that easy success. Towards Claire herself I had no trace of
the conventional attitude, whether of contempt or of curiosity. She
was to me the product of a social system, of the great New Nineveh
which I was investigating. And later on, when I knew her, she was a
weak sister whom I tried to help.

It happened that I knew much more about such matters than the
average woman--owing to a tragedy in my life. When I was about
twenty-five years old, my brother-in-law had moved his family to our
part of the world, and one of his boys had become very dear to me.
This boy later on had got into trouble, and rather than tell anyone
about it, had shot himself. So my eyes had been opened to things
that are usually hidden from my sex; for the sake of my own sons, I
had set out to study the underground ways of the male creature. I
developed the curious custom of digging out every man I met, and
making him lay bare his inmost life to me; so you may understand
that it was no ordinary pair of woman's arms into which Claire
Lepage was thrown.

At first I attributed her vices to her environment, but soon I
realized that this was a mistake; the women of her world do not as a
rule go to pieces. Many of them I met were free and independent
women, one or two of them intellectual and worth knowing. For the
most part such women marry well, in the worldly sense, and live as
contented lives as the average lady who secures her life-contract at
the outset. If you had met Claire at an earlier period of her
career, and if she had been concerned to impress you, you might have
thought her a charming hostess. She had come of good family, and
been educated in a convent--much better educated than many society
girls in America. She spoke English as well as she did French, and
she had read some poetry, and could use the language of idealism
whenever necessary. She had even a certain religious streak, and
could voice the most generous sentiments, and really believe that
she believed them. So it might have been some time before you
discovered the springs of her weakness.

In the beginning I blamed van Tuiver; but in the end I concluded
that for most of her troubles she had herself to thank--or perhaps
the ancestors who had begotten her. She could talk more nobly and
act more abjectly than any other woman I have ever known. She wanted
pleasant sensations, and she expected life to furnish them
continuously. Instinctively she studied the psychology of the person
she was dealing with, and chose a reason which would impress that
person.

At this time, you understand, I knew nothing about Sylvia Castleman
or her fianc�, except what the public knew. But now I got an inside
view--and what a view! I had read some reference to Douglas van
Tuiver's Harvard career: how he had met the peerless Southern
beauty, and had given up college and pursued her to her home. I had
pictured the wooing in the rosy lights of romance, with all the
glamour of worldly greatness. But now, suddenly, what a glimpse into
the soul of the princely lover! "He had a good scare, let me tell
you," said Claire. "He never knew what I was going to do from one
minute to the next."

"Did he see you in the crowd before the church door?" I inquired.

"No," she replied, "but he thought of me, I can promise you."

"He knew you were coming?"

She answered, "I told him I had got an admission card, just to make
sure he'd keep me in mind!"

4. I did not have to hear much more of Claire's story before making
up my mind that the wealthiest and most fashionable of New York's
young bachelors was a rather self-centred person. He had fallen
desperately in love with the peerless Southern beauty, and when she
had refused to have anything to do with him, he had come back to the
other woman for consolation, and had compelled her to pretend to
sympathize with his agonies of soul. And this when he knew that she
loved him with the intensity of a jealous nature.

Claire had her own view of Sylvia Castleman, a view for which I
naturally made due reservations. Sylvia was a schemer, who had known
from the first what she wanted, and had played her part with
masterly skill. As for Claire, she had striven to match her moves,
plotting in the darkness against her, and fighting desperately with
such weak weapons as she possessed. It was characteristic that she
did not blame herself for her failure; it was the baseness of van
Tuiver, his inability to appreciate sincere devotion, his
unworthiness of her love. And this, just after she had been naively
telling me of her efforts to poison his mind against Sylvia while
pretending to admire her! But I made allowances for Claire at this
moment--realizing that the situation had been one to overstrain any
woman's altruism.

She had failed in her subtleties, and there had followed scenes of
bitter strife between the two. Sylvia, the cunning huntress, having
pretended to relent, van Tuiver had gone South to his wooing again,
while Claire had stayed at home and read a book about the poisoners
of the Italian renaissance. And then had come the announcement of
the engagement, after which the royal conqueror had come back in a
panic, and sent embassies of his male friends to plead with Claire,
alternately promising her wealth and threatening her with
destitution, appealing to her fear, her cupidity, and even to her
love. To all of which I listened, thinking of the wide-open,
innocent eyes of the picture, and shedding tears within my soul. So
must the gods feel as they look down upon the affairs of mortals,
seeing how they destroy themselves by ignorance and folly, seeing
how they walk into the future as a blind man into a yawning abyss.

I gave, of course, due weight to the sneers of Claire. Perhaps the
innocent one really had set a trap--had picked van Tuiver out and
married him for his money. But even so, I could hope that she had
not known what she was doing. Surely it had never occurred to her
that through all the days of her triumph she would have to eat and
sleep with the shade of another woman at her side!

Claire said to me, not once, but a dozen times, "He'll come back to
me. She'll never be able to make him happy." And so I pictured
Sylvia upon her honeymoon, followed by an invisible ghost whose
voice she would never hear, whose name she would never know. All
that van Tuiver had learned from Claire, the sensuality, the
_ennin_, the contempt for woman--it would rise to torment and
terrify his bride, and turn her life to bitterness. And then beyond
this, deeps upon deeps, to which my imagination did not go--and of
which the Frenchwoman, with all her freedom of tongue, gave me no
more than a hint which I could not comprehend.

5. Claire Lepage at this time was desperately lonely and unhappy.
Having made the discovery that my arms were sturdy, used to doing a
man's work, she clung to them. She begged me to go home with her, to
visit her--finally to come and live with her. Until recently an
elderly companion, had posed as her aunt, and kept her respectable
while she was upon van Tuiver's yacht, and at his castle in
Scotland. But this companion had died, and now Claire had no one
with whom to discuss her soul-states.

She occupied a beautiful house on the West Side, not far from
Riverside Drive; and in addition to the use of this she had an
income of eight thousand a year--which was not enough to make
possible a chauffeur, nor even to dress decently, but only enough to
keep in debt upon. Such as the income was, however, she was willing
to share it with me. So there opened before me a new profession--
and a new insight into the complications of parasitism.

I went to see her frequently at first, partly because I was
interested in her and her associates, and partly because I really
thought I could help her. But I soon came to realize that
influencing Claire was like moulding water; it flowed back round
your hands, even while you worked. I would argue with her about the
physiological effects of alcohol, and when I had convinced her, she
would promise caution; but soon I would discover that my arguments
had gone over her head. I was at this time feeling my way towards my
work in the East. I tried to interest her in such things as social
reform, but realized that they had no meaning for her. She was
living the life of the pleasure-seeking idlers of the great
metropolis, and every time I met her it seemed to me that her
character and her appearance had deteriorated.

Meantime I picked up scraps of information concerning the van
Tuivers. There were occasional items in the papers, their yacht, the
"Triton," had reached the Azores; it had run into a tender in the
harbour of Gibraltar; Mr. and Mrs. van Tuiver had received the
honour of presentation at the Vatican; they were spending the season
in London, and had been presented at court; they had been royal
guests at the German army-manoeuvres. The million wage-slaves of the
metropolis, packed morning and night into the roaring subways and
whirled to and from their tasks, read items such as these and were
thrilled by the triumphs of their fellow-countrymen.

At Claire's house I learned to be interested in "society" news. From
a weekly paper of gossip about the rich and great she would read
paragraphs, explaining subtle allusions and laying bare veiled
scandals. Some of the men she knew well, referring to them for my
benefit as Bertie and Reggie and Vivie and Algie. She also knew not
a little about the women of that super-world--information sometimes
of an intimate nature, which these ladies would have been startled
to hear was going the rounds.

This insight I got into Claire's world I found useful, needless to
say, in my occasional forays as a soap-box orator of Socialism. I
would go from the super-heated luxury of her home to visit
tenement-dens where little children made paper-flowers twelve and
fourteen hours a day for a trifle over one cent an hour. I would
spend the afternoon floating about in the park in the automobile of
one of her expensive friends, and then take the subway and visit one
of the settlements, to hear a discussion of conditions which doomed
a certain number of working-girls to be burned alive every year in
factory fires.

As time went on, I became savage concerning such contrasts, and the
speeches I was making for the party began to attract attention.
During the summer, I recollect, I had begun to feel hostile even
towards the lovely image of Sylvia, which I had framed in my room.
While she was being presented at St. James's, I was studying the
glass-factories in South Jersey, where I found little boys of ten
working in front of glowing furnaces until they dropped of
exhaustion and sometimes had their eyes burned out. While she and
her husband were guests of the German Emperor, I was playing the
part of a Polish working-woman, penetrating the carefully guarded
secrets of the sugar-trust's domain in Brooklyn, where human lives
are snuffed out almost every day in noxious fumes.

And then in the early fall Sylvia came home, her honeymoon over. She
came in one of the costly suites in the newest of the _de luxe_
steamers; and the next morning I saw a new picture of her, and read
a few words her husband had condescended to say to a fellow
traveller about the courtesy of Europe to visiting Americans. Then
for a couple of months I heard no more of them. I was busy with my
child-labour work, and I doubt if a thought of Sylvia crossed my
mind, until that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon at Mrs. Allison's
when she came up to me and took my hand in hers.

6. Mrs. Roland Allison was one of the comfortable in body who had
begun to feel uncomfortable in mind. I had happened to meet her at
the settlement, and tell her what I had seen in the glass factories;
whereupon she made up her mind that everybody she knew must hear me
talk, and to that end gave a reception at her Madison Avenue home.

I don't remember much of what I said, but if I may take the evidence
of Sylvia, who remembered everything, I spoke effectively. I told
them, for one thing, the story of little Angelo Patri. Little Angelo
was of that indeterminate Italian age where he helped to support a
drunken father without regard to the child-labour laws of the State
of New Jersey. His people were tenants upon a fruit-farm a couple of
miles from the glass-factory, and little Angelo walked to and from
his work along the railroad-track. It is a peculiarity of the
glass-factory that it has to eat its children both by day and by
night; and after working six hours before midnight and six more
after midnight, little Angelo was tired. He had no eye for the birds
and flowers on a beautiful spring morning, but as he was walking
home, he dropped in his tracks and fell asleep. The driver of the
first morning train on that branch-line saw what he took to be an
old coat lying on the track ahead, and did not stop to investigate.

All this had been narrated to me by the child's mother, who had
worked as a packer of "beers," and who had loved little Angelo. As I
repeated her broken words about the little mangled body, I saw some
of my auditors wipe away a surreptitious tear.

After I had stopped, several women came up to talk with me at the
last, when most of the company was departing, there came one more,
who had waited her turn. The first thing I saw was her loveliness,
the thing about her that dazzled and stunned people, and then came
the strange sense of familiarity. Where had I met this girl before?

She said what everybody always says; she had been so much
interested, she had never dreamed that such conditions existed in
the world. I, applying the acid test, responded, "So many people
have said that to me that I have begun to believe it."

"It is so in my case," she replied, quickly. "You see, I have lived
all my life in the South, and we have no such conditions there."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Our negroes at least can steal enough to eat," she said.

I smiled. Then--since one has but a moment or two to get in one's
work in these social affairs, and so has to learn to thrust quickly:
"You have timber-workers in Louisiana, steel-workers in Alabama. You
have tobacco-factories, canning-factories, cotton-mills--have you
been to any of them to see how the people live?"

All this I said automatically, it being the routine of the agitator.
But meantime in my mind was an excitement, spreading like a flame.
The loveliness of this young girl; the eagerness, the intensity of
feeling written upon her countenance; and above all, the strange
sense of familiarity! Surely, if I had met her before, I should
never have forgotten her; surely it could not be--not possibly--

My hostess came, and ended my bewilderment. "You ought to get Mrs.
van Tuiver on your child-labour committee," she said.

A kind of panic seized me. I wanted to say, "Oh, it is Sylvia
Castleman!" But then, how could I explain? I couldn't say, "I have
your picture in my room, cut out of a newspaper." Still less could I
say, "I know a friend of your husband."

Fortunately Sylvia did not heed my excitement. (She had learned by
this time to pretend not to notice.) "Please don't misunderstand
me," she was saying. "I really _don't_ know about these things. And
I would do something to help if I could." As she said this she
looked with the red-brown eyes straight into mine--a gaze so clear
and frank and honest, it was as if an angel had come suddenly to
earth, and learned of the horrible tangle into which we mortals have
got our affairs.

"Be careful what you're saying," put in our hostess, with a laugh.
"You're in dangerous hands."

But Sylvia would not be warned. "I want to know more about it," she
said. "You must tell me what I can do."

"Take her at her word," said Mrs. Allison, to me. "Strike while the
iron is hot!" I detected a note of triumph in her voice; if she
could say that she had got Mrs. van Tuiver to take up
child-labour--that indeed would be a feather to wear!

"I will tell you all I can," I said. "That's my work in the world."

"Take Mrs. Abbott away with you," said the energetic hostess, to
Sylvia; and before I quite understood what was happening, I had
received and accepted an invitation to drive in the park with Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver. In her role of _dea ex machina_ the hostess
extricated me from the other guests, and soon I was established in a
big new motor, gliding up Madison Avenue as swiftly and silently as
a cloud-shadow over the fields. As I write the words there lies
upon my table a Socialist paper with one of Will Dyson's vivid
cartoons, representing two ladies of the great world at a reception.
Says the first, "These social movements are becoming _quite_ worth
while!" "Yes, indeed," says the other. "One meets such good
society!"

7. Sylvia's part in this adventure was a nobler one than mine,
Seated as I was in a regal motor-car, and in company with one
favoured of all the gods in the world, I must have had an intense
conviction of my own saintliness not to distrust my excitement. But
Sylvia, for her part, had nothing to get from me but pain. I talked
of the factory-fires and the horrors of the sugar-refineries, and I
saw shadow after shadow of suffering cross her face. You may say it
was cruel of me to tear the veil from those lovely eyes, but in such
a matter I felt myself the angel of the Lord and His vengeance.

"I didn't know about these things!" she cried again. And I found it
was true. It would have been hard for me to imagine anyone so
ignorant of the realities of modern life. The men and women she had
met she understood quite miraculously, but they were only two kinds,
the "best people" and their negro servants. There had been a whole
regiment of relatives on guard to keep her from knowing anybody
else, or anything else, and if by chance a dangerous fact broke into
the family stockade, they had formulas ready with which to kill it.

"But now," Sylvia went on, "I've got some money, and I can help, so
I dare not be ignorant any longer. You must show me the way, and my
husband too. I'm sure he doesn't know what can be done."

I said that I would do anything in my power. Her help would be
invaluable, not merely because of the money she might give, but
because of the influence of her name; the attention she could draw
to any cause she chose. I explained to her the aims and the methods
of our child-labour committee. We lobbied to get new legislation;
we watched officials to compel them to enforce the laws already
existing; above all, we worked for publicity, to make people realise
what it meant that the new generation was growing up without
education, and stunted by premature toil. And that was where she
could help us most--if she would go and see the conditions with her
own eyes, and then appear before the legislative committee this
winter, in favour of our new bill!

She turned her startled eyes upon me at this. Her ideas of doing
good in the world were the old-fashioned ones of visiting and
almsgiving; she had no more conception of modern remedies than she
had of modern diseases. "Oh, I couldn't possibly make a speech!" she
exclaimed.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I never thought of such a thing. I don't know enough."

"But you can learn."

"I know, but that kind of work ought to be done by men."

"We've given men a chance, and they have made the evils. Whose
business is it to protect the children if not the women's?"

She hesitated a moment, and then said: "I suppose you'll laugh at
me."

"No, no," I promised; then as I looked at her I guessed. "Are you
going to tell me that woman's place is the home?"

"That is what we think in Castleman County," she said, smiling in
spite of herself.

"The children have got out of the home," I replied. "If they are
ever to get back, we women must go and fetch them."

Suddenly she laughed--that merry laugh that was the April sunshine
of my life for many years. "Somebody made a Suffrage speech in our
State a couple of years ago, and I wish you could have seen the
horror of my people! My Aunt Nannie--she's Bishop Chilton's
wife--thought it was the most dreadful thing that had happened since
Jefferson Davis was put in irons. She talked about it for days, and
at last she went upstairs and shut herself in the attic. The younger
children came home from school, and wanted to know where mamma was.
Nobody knew. Bye and bye, the cook came. 'Marse Basil, what we gwine
have fo' dinner? I done been up to Mis' Nannie, an' she say g'way
an' not pester her--she busy.' Company came, and there was dreadful
confusion--nobody knew what to do about anything--and still Aunt
Nannie was locked in! At last came dinner-time, and everybody else
came. At last up went the butler, and came down with the message
that they were to eat whatever they had, and take care of the
company somehow, and go to prayer-meeting, and let her alone--she
was writing a letter to the Castleman County _Register_ on the
subject of 'The Duty of Woman as a Homemaker'!"

8. This was the beginning of my introduction to Castleman County. It
was a long time before I went there, but I learned to know its
inhabitants from Sylvia's stories of them. Funny stories, tragic
stories, wild and incredible stories out of a half-barbaric age! She
would tell them and we would laugh together; but then a wistful look
would come into her eyes, and a silence would fall. So very soon I
made the discovery that my Sylvia was homesick. In all the years
that I knew her she never ceased to speak of Castleman Hall as
"home". All her standards came from there, her new ideas were
referred there.

We talked of Suffrage for a while, and I spoke about the lives of
women on lonely farms--how they give their youth and health to their
husband's struggle, yet have no money partnership which they can
enforce in case of necessity. "But surely," cried Sylvia, "you don't
want to make divorce more easy!"

"I want to make the conditions of it fair to women," I said.

"But then more women will get it! And there are so many divorced
women now! Papa says that divorce is a greater menace than
Socialism!"

She spoke of Suffrage in England, where women were just beginning to
make public disturbances. Surely I did not approve of their leaving
their homes for such purposes as that! As tactfully as I could, I
suggested that conditions in England were peculiar. There was, for
example, the quaint old law which permitted a husband to beat his
wife subject to certain restrictions. Would an American woman submit
to such a law? There was the law which made it impossible for a
woman to divorce her husband for infidelity, unless accompanied by
desertion or cruelty. Surely not even her father would consider that
a decent arrangement! I mentioned a recent decision of the highest
court in the land, that a man who brought his mistress to live in
his home, and compelled his wife to wait upon her, was not
committing cruelty within the meaning of the English law. I heard
Sylvia's exclamation of horror, and met her stare of incredulity;
and then suddenly I thought of Claire, and a little chill ran over
me. It was a difficult hour, in more ways than one, that of my first
talk with Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver!

I soon made the discovery that, childish as her ignorance was, there
was no prejudice in it. If you brought her a fact, she did not say
that it was too terrible to be true, or that the Bible said
otherwise, or that it was indecent to know about it. Nor, when you
met her next, did you discover that she had forgotten it. On the
contrary, you discovered that she had followed it to its remote
consequences, and was ready with a score of questions as to these. I
remember saying to myself, that first automobile ride: "If this girl
goes on thinking, she will get into trouble! She will have to stop,
for the sake of others!"

"You must meet my husband some time," she said; and added, "I'll
have to see my engagement-book. I have so much to do, I never know
when I have a moment free."

"You must find it interesting," I ventured.

"I did, for a while; but I've begun to get tired of so much going
about. For the most part I meet the same people, and I've found out
what they have to say."

I laughed. "You have caught the society complaint already--_ennui_!"

"I had it years ago, at home. It's true I never would have gone out
at all if it hadn't been for the sake of my family. That's why I
envy a woman like you--"

I could not help laughing. It was too funny, Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver
envying me!

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Just the irony of life. Do you know, I cut you out of the
newspaper, and put you in a little frame on my bureau. I thought,
here is the loveliest face I've ever seen, and here is the
most-to-be-envied of women."

She smiled, but quickly became serious. "I learned very early in
life that I was beautiful; and I suppose if I were suddenly to cease
being beautiful, I'd miss it; yet I often think it's a nuisance. It
makes one dependent on externals. Most of the beautiful women I've
known make a sort of profession of it--they live to shine and be
looked at.

"And you don't enjoy that?" I asked.

"It restricts one's life. Men expect it of you, they resent your
having any other interest."

"So," I responded, gravely, "with all your beauty and wealth, you
aren't perfectly happy?"

"Oh, yes!" she cried--not having meant to confess so much. "I told
myself I would be happy, because I would be able to do so much good
in the world. There must be some way to do good with money! But now
I'm not sure; there seem to be so many things in the way. Just when
you have your mind made up that you have a way to help, someone
comes and points out to you that you may be really doing harm."

She hesitated again, and I said, "That means you have been looking
into the matter of charity."

She gave me a bright glance. "How you understand things!" she
exclaimed.

"It is possible," I replied, "to know modern society so well that
when you meet certain causes you know what results to look for."

"I wish you'd explain to me why charity doesn't do any good!"

"It would mean a lecture on the competitive wage-system," I
laughed--" too serious a matter for a drive!"

This may have seemed shirking on my part. But here I was, wrapped in
luxurious furs, rolling gloriously through the park at twilight on a
brilliant autumn evening; and the confiscation of property seems so
much more startling a proposition when you are in immediate contact
with it! This principle, which explains the "opportunism" of
Socialist cabinet-ministers and Labour M.P.s may be used to account
for the sudden resolve which I had taken, that for this afternoon at
least Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver should not discover that I was either
a divorced woman, or a soap-box orator of the revolution.

9. Sylvia, in that first conversation, told me much about herself
that she did not know she was telling. I became fairly certain, for
instance, that she had not married Mr. Douglas van Tuiver for love.
The young girl who has so married does not suffer from ennui in the
first year, nor does she find her happiness depending upon her
ability to solve the problem of charity in connection with her
husband's wealth.

She would have ridden and talked longer, she said, but for a dinner
engagement. She asked me to call on her, and I promised to come some
morning, as soon as she set a day. When the car drew up before the
door of her home, I thought of my first ride about the city in the
"rubber-neck wagon," and how I had stared when the lecturer pointed
out this mansion. We, the passengers, had thrilled as one soul,
imagining the wonderful life which must go on behind those massive
portals, the treasures outshining the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
which required those thick, bronze bars for their protection. And
here was the mistress of all the splendour, inviting me to come and
see it from within!

She wanted to send me home in the car, but I would not have that, on
account of the push-cart men and the babies in my street; I got out
and walked--my heart beating fast, my blood leaping with exultation.
I reached home, and there on the bureau was the picture--but behold,
how changed! It was become a miracle of the art of
colour-photography; its hair was golden, its eyes a wonderful
red-brown, its cheeks aglow with the radiance of youth! And yet more
amazing, the picture spoke! It spoke with the most delicious of
Southern drawls--referring to the "repo't" of my child-labour
committee, shivering at the cold and bidding me pull the "fu-uzz" up
round me. And when I told funny stories about the Italians and the
Hebrews of my tenement-neighbourhood, it broke into silvery
laughter, and cried: "Oh, de-ah me! How que-ah!" Little had I
dreamed, when I left that picture in the morning, what a miracle was
to be wrought upon it.

I knew, of course, what was the matter with me; the symptoms were
unmistakable. After having made up my mind that I was an old woman,
and that there was nothing more in life for me save labour--here the
little archer had come, and with the sharpest of his golden arrows,
had shot me through. I had all the thrills, the raptures and
delicious agonies of first love; I lived no longer in myself, but in
the thought of another person. Twenty times a day I looked at my
picture, and cried aloud: "Oh, beautiful, beautiful!"

I do not know how much of her I have been able to give. I have told
of our first talk--but words are so cold and dead! I stop and ask:
What there is, in all nature, that has given me the same feeling? I
remember how I watched the dragon-fly emerging from its chrysalis.
It is soft and green and tender; it clings to a branch and dries its
wings in the sun, and when the miracle is completed, there for a
brief space it poises, shimmering with a thousand hues, quivering
with its new-born ecstasy. And just so was Sylvia; a creature from
some other world than ours, as yet unsoiled by the dust and heat of
reality. It came to me with a positive shock, as a terrifying thing,
that there should be in this world of strife and wickedness any
young thing that took life with such intensity, that was so
palpitating with eagerness, with hope, with sympathy. Such was the
impression that one got of her, even when her words most denied it.
She might be saying world-weary and cynical things, out of the
maxims of Lady Dee; but there was still the eagerness, the sympathy,
surging beneath and lifting her words.

The crown of her loveliness was her unconsciousness of self. Even
though she might be talking of herself, frankly admitting her
beauty, she was really thinking of other people, how she could get
to them to help them. This I must emphasize, because, apart from
jesting, I would not have it thought that I had fallen under the
spell of a beautiful countenance, combined with a motor-car and a
patrician name. There were things about Sylvia that were
aristocratic, that could be nothing else; but she could be her same
lovely self in a cottage--as I shall prove to you before I finish
with the story of her life.

I was in love. At that time I was teaching myself German, and I sat
one day puzzling out two lines of Goethe:

"Oden and Thor, these two thou knowest; Freya, the heavenly, knowest
thou not."

And I remember how I cried aloud in sudden delight: _"I know her!"_
For a long time that was one of my pet names--"Freya dis
Himmlische!" I only heard of one other that I preferred--when in
course of time she told me about Frank Shirley, and how she had
loved him, and how their hopes had been wrecked. He had called her
"Lady Sunshine"; he had been wont to call it over and over in his
happiness, and as Sylvia repeated it to me--"Lady Sunshine! Lady
Sunshine!" I could imagine that I caught an echo of the very tones
of Frank Shirley's voice.

10. For several days I waited upon the postman, and when the summons
came I dodged a committee-meeting, and ascended the marble stairs
with trepidation, and underwent the doubting scrutiny of an English
lackey, sufficiently grave in deportment and habiliments to have
waited upon a bishop in his own land. I have a vague memory of an
entrance-hall with panelled paintings and a double-staircase with a
snow-white carpet, about which I had read in the newspapers that it
was woven in one piece, and had cost an incredible sum. One did not
have to profane it with his feet, as there was an elevator provided.

I was shown to Sylvia's morning-room, which had been "done" in pink
and white and gold by some decorator who had known her colours. It
was large enough to have held half-a-dozen of my own quarters, and
the sun was allowed to flood it. Through a door at one side came
Sylvia, holding out her hands to me.

She was really glad to see me! She began to apologize at once for
the time she had taken to write. It was because she had so much to
do. She had married into a world that took itself seriously: the
"idle rich," who worked like slaves. "You know," she said, while we
sat on a pink satin couch, and a footman brought us coffee: "you
read that Mrs. So-and-so is a 'social queen,' and you think it's a
newspaper phrase, but it isn't; she really feels that she's a queen,
and other people feel it, and she goes through her ceremonies as
solemnly as the Lord's anointed."

She went on to tell me some of her adventures. She had a keen sense
of fun, and was evidently suffering for an outlet for it. She saw
through the follies and pretences of people in a flash, but they
were all such august and important people that, out of regard for
her husband, she dared not let them suspect her clairvoyant power.

She referred to her experiences abroad. She had not liked
Europe--being quite frankly a provincial person. To Castleman County
a foreigner was a strange, dark person who mixed up his consonants,
and was under suspicion of being a fiddler or an opera-singer. The
people she had met under her husband's charge had been socially
indubitable, but still, they were foreigners, and Sylvia could never
really be sure what they meant.

There was, for instance, the young son of a German steel-king, a
person of amazing savoir faire, who had made bold to write books and
exhibit pictures, and had travelled so widely that he had even heard
of Castleman County. He had taken Sylvia to show her the sights of
Berlin, and had rolled her down the "Sieges All�e," making
outrageous fun of his Kaiser's taste in art, and coming at last to a
great marble column, with a female figure representing Victory upon
the top. "You will observe," said the cultured young plutocrat,
"that the Grecian lady stands a hundred meters in the air, and has
no stairway. There is a popular saying about her which is
delightful--that she is the only chaste woman in Berlin!"

I had been through the culture-seeking stage, and knew my Henry
James; so I could read between the lines of Sylvia's experiences. I
figured her as a person walking on volcanic ground, not knowing her
peril, but vaguely disquieted by a smell of sulphur in the air. And
once in a while a crack would open in the ground! There was the Duke
of Something in Rome, for example, a melancholy young man, with whom
she had coquetted, as she did, in her merry fashion, with every man
she met. Being married, she had taken it for granted that she might
be as winsome as she chose; but the young Italian had misunderstood
the game, and had whispered words of serious import, which had so
horrified Sylvia that she flew to her husband and told him the
story--begging him incidentally not to horse-whip the fellow. In
reply it had to be explained to her she had laid herself liable to
the misadventure. The ladies of the Italian aristocracy were severe
and formal, and Sylvia had no right to expect an ardent young duke
to understand her native wildness.

11. Something of that sort was always happening--something in each
country to bewilder her afresh, and to make it necessary for her
husband to remind her of the proprieties. In France, a cousin of van
Tuiver's had married a marquis, and they had visited the chateau.
The family was Catholic, of the very oldest and strictest, and the
brother-in-law, a prelate of high degree, had invited the guests to
be shown through his cathedral. "Imagine my bewilderment!" said
Sylvia. "I thought I was going to meet a church dignitary, grave and
reverent; but here was a wit, a man of the world. Such speeches you
never heard! I was ravished by the grandeur of the building, and I
said: 'If I had seen this, I would have come to you to be married.'
'Madame is an American,' he replied. 'Come the next time!' When I
objected that I was not a Catholic, he said: 'Your beauty is its own
religion!' When I protested that he would be doing me too great an
honour, 'Madame,' said he, 'the _honneur_ would be all to the church!'
And because I was shocked at all this, I was considered to be a
provincial person!"

Then they had come to London, a dismal, damp city where you "never
saw the sun, and when you did see it it looked like a poached egg";
where you had to learn to eat fish with the help of a knife, and
where you might speak of bitches, but must never on any account
speak of your stomach. They went for a week-end to "Hazelhurst," the
home of the Dowager Duchess of Danbury, whose son van Tuiver, had
entertained in America, and who, in the son's absence, claimed the
right to repay the debt. The old lady sat at table with two fat
poodle dogs in infants' chairs, one on each side of her, feeding out
of golden trays. There was a visiting curate, a frightened little
man at the other side of one poodle; in an effort to be at ease he
offered the wheezing creature a bit of bread. "Don't feed my dogs!"
snapped the old lady. "I don't allow anybody to feed my dogs!"

And then there was the Honourable Reginald Annersley, the youngest
son of the family, home from Eton on vacation. The Honourable
Reginald was twelve years of age, undersized and ill-nourished.
("They feed them badly," his mother had explained, "an' the
teachin's no good either, but it's a school for gentlemen.")
"Honestly," said Sylvia, "he was the queerest little mannikin--like
the tiny waiter's assistants you see in hotels on the Continent. He
wore his Eton suit, you understand--grown-up evening clothes minus
the coat-tails, and a top hat. He sat at tea and chatted with the
mincing graces of a cotillion-leader; you expected to find some of
his hair gone when he took off his hat! He spoke of his brother, the
duke, who had gone off shooting seals somewhere. 'The jolly rotter
has nothing to do but spend his money; but we younger sons have to
work like dogs when we grow up!' I asked what he'd do, and he said
'I suppose there's nothin' but the church. It's a beastly bore, but
you do get a livin' out of it.'

"That was too much for me," said Sylvia. "I proceeded to tell the
poor, blas� infant about my childhood; how my sister Celeste and I
had caught half-tamed horses and galloped about the pasture on them,
when we were so small that our little fat legs stuck out
horizontally; how we had given ourselves convulsions in the green
apple orchard, and had to be spanked every day before we had our
hair combed. I told how we heard a war-story about a "train of
gunpowder," and proceeded to lay such a train about the attic of
Castleman Hall, and set fire to it. I might have spent the afternoon
teaching the future churchman how to be a boy, if I hadn't suddenly
caught a glimpse of my husband's face!"

12. I did not hear these stories all at once. I have put them
together here because they make a little picture of her honeymoon,
and also because they show how, without meaning it, she was giving
me an account of her husband.

There had been even fewer adventures in the life of young Douglas
van Tuiver than in the life of the Honourable Reginald Annersley.
When one heard the details of the up-bringing of this "millionaire
baby," one was able to forgive him for being self-centred. He had
grown into a man who lived to fulfil his social duties, and he had
taken to wife a girl who was reckless, high-spirited, with a streak
of almost savage pride in her.

Sylvia's was the true aristocratic attitude towards the rest of the
world. It could never have occurred to her to imagine that anywhere
upon the whole earth there were people superior to the Castlemans of
Castleman County. If you had been ignorant enough to suggest such an
idea, you would have seen her eyes flash and her nostrils quiver;
you would have been enveloped in a net of bewilderment and
transfixed with a trident of mockery and scorn. That was what she
had done in her husband-hunt. The trouble was that van Tuiver was
not clever enough to realise this, and to trust her prowess against
other beasts in the social jungle.

Strange to me were such inside glimpses into the life of these two
favourites of the gods! I never grew weary of speculating about
them, and the mystery of their alliance. How had Sylvia come to make
this marriage? She was not happy with him; keen psychologist that
she was, she must have foreseen that she would not be happy with
him. Had she deliberately sacrificed herself, because of the good
she imagined she could do to her family?

I was beginning to believe this. Irritated as she was by the solemn
snobberies of van Tuiver's world, it was none the less true that she
believed in money; she believed in it with a faith which appalled me
as I came to realise it. Everybody had to have money; the social
graces, the aristocratic virtues were impossible without it. The
rich needed it--even the poor needed it! Could it be that the proud
Castlemans of Castleman County had needed it also?

If that guess at her inmost soul was correct, then what a drama was
her meeting with me! A person who despised money, who had proven it
by grim deeds--and this a person of her own money-worshipping sex!
What was the meaning of this phenomenon--this new religion that was
challenging the priesthood of Mammon? So some Roman consul's
daughter might have sat in her father's palace, and questioned in
wonder a Christian slave woman, destined ere long to face the lions
in the arena.

The exactness of this simile was not altered by the fact that in
this case the slave woman was an agnostic, while the patrician girl
had been brought up in the creed of Christ. Sylvia had long since
begun to question the formulas of a church whose very pews were
rented, and whose existence, she declared, had to be justified by
charity to the poor. As we sat and talked, she knew this one thing
quite definitely--that I had a religion, and she had none. That was
the reason for the excitement which possessed her.

Nor was that fact ever out of my own mind for a moment. As she sat
there in her sun-flooded morning-room, clad in an exquisite
embroidered robe of pink Japanese silk, she was such a lovely thing
that I was ready to cry out for joy of her; and yet there was
something within me, grim and relentless, that sat on guard, warning
me that she was of a different faith from mine, and that between
those two faiths there could be no compromise. Some day she must
find out what I thought of her husband's wealth, and the work it was
doing in the world! Some day she must hear my real opinion of the
religion of motor-cars and hand-woven carpets!

13. Nor was the day so very far off. She sat opposite me, leaning
forward in her eagerness, declaring: "You must help to educate me. I
shall never rest until I'm of some real use in the world."

"What have you thought of doing?" I inquired.

"I don't know yet. My husband has an aunt who's interested in a
day-nursery for the children of working-women. I thought I might
help this, but my husband says it does no good whatever--it only
makes paupers of the poor. Do you think so?"

"I think more than that," I replied. "It sets women free to compete
with men, and beat down men's wages."

"Oh, what a puzzle!" she exclaimed, and then: "Is there any way of
helping the poor that wouldn't be open to the same objection?"

That brought us once more to the subject I had put aside at our last
meeting. She had not forgotten it, and asked again for an
explanation. What did I mean by the competitive wage system?

My purpose in this writing is to tell the story of Sylvia
Castleman's life, to show, not merely what she was, but what she
became. I have to make real to you a process of growth in her soul,
and at this moment the important event is her discovery of the
class-struggle and her reaction to it. You may say, perhaps, that
you are not interested in the class-struggle, but you cannot alter
the fact that you live in an age when millions of people are having
the course of their lives changed by the discovery of it. Here, for
instance, is a girl who has been taught to keep her promises, and
has promised to love, honour and obey a man; she is to find the task
more difficult, because she comes to understand the competitive
wage-system while he does not understand it and does not wish to.
If that seems to you strange material out of which to make a
domestic drama, I can only tell you that you have missed some of the
vital facts of your own time.

I gave her a little lesson in elementary economics. I showed her
how, when a capitalist needed labour, he bought it in the open
market, like any other commodity. He did not think about the human
side of it, he paid the market-price, which came to be what the
labourer had to have in order to live. No labourer could get more,
because others would take less.

"If that be true," I continued, "one of the things that follows is
the futility of charity. Whatever you do for the wage-worker on a
general scale comes sooner or later out of his wages. If you take
care of his children all day or part of the day, he can work for
less; if he doesn't discover that someone else does, and underbids
him and takes his place. If you feed his children at school, if you
bury him free, if you insure his life, or even give him a dinner on
Christmas Day, you simply enable his landlord to charge him more, or
his employer to pay him less."

Sylvia sat for a while in thought, and then asked: "What can be done
about such a fact?"

"The first thing to be done is to make sure that you understand it.
Nine-tenths of the people who concern themselves with social
questions don't, and so they waste their time in futilities. For
instance, I read the other day an article by a benevolent old
gentleman who believed that the social problem could be solved by
teaching the poor to chew their food better, so that they would eat
less. You may laugh at that, but it's not a bit more absurd than the
idea of our men of affairs, that the thing to do is to increase the
efficiency of the workers, and so produce more goods."

"You mean the working-man doesn't get more, even when he produces
more?"

"Take the case of the glass factories. Men used to get eight dollars
a day there, but someone invented a machine that did the work of a
dozen men, and that machine is run by a boy for fifty cents a day."

A little pucker of thought came between her eyes. "Might there not
be a law forbidding the employer to reduce wages?"

"A minimum wage law. But that would raise the cost of the product,
and drive the trade to another state."

She suggested a national law, and when I pointed out that the trade
would go to other countries, she fell back on the tariff. I felt
like an embryologist--watching the individual repeating the history
of the race!

"Protection and prosperity!" I said, with a smile. "Don't you see
the increase in the cost of living? The working-man gets more money
in his pay envelope, but he can't buy more with it because prices go
up. And even supposing you could pass a minimum wage law, and stop
competition in wages, you'd only change it to competition in
efficiency--you'd throw the old and the feeble and the untrained
into pauperism."

"You make the world seem a hard place to live in," protested Sylvia.

"I'm simply telling you the elementary facts of business. You can
forbid the employer to pay less than a standard wage, but you can't
compel him to employ people who aren't able to earn that wage. The
business-man doesn't employ for fun, he does it for the profit there
is in it."

"If that is true," said Sylvia, quickly, "then the way of employing
people is cruel."

"But what other way could you have?"

She considered. "They could be employed so that no one would make a
profit. Then surely they could be paid enough to live decently!"

"But whose interest would it be to employ them without profit?"

"The State should do it, if no one else will."

I had been playing a game with Sylvia, as no doubt you have
perceived. "Surely," I said, "you wouldn't approve anything like
that!"

"But why not?"

"Because, it would be Socialism."

She looked at me startled. "Is that Socialism?"

"Of course it is. It's the essence of Socialism."

"But then--what's the harm in it?"

I laughed. "I thought you said that Socialism was a menace, like
divorce!"

I had my moment of triumph, but then I discovered how fond was the
person who imagined that he could play with Sylvia. "I suspect you
are something of a Socialist yourself," she remarked.

She told me a long time afterwards what had been her emotions during
these early talks. It was the first time in her life that she had
ever listened to ideas that were hostile to her order, and she did
so with tremblings and hesitations, combating at every step an
impulse to flee to the shelter of conventionality. She was more
shocked by my last revelation than she let me suspect. It counted
for little that I had succeeded in trapping her in proposing for
herself the economic programme of Socialism, for what terrifies her
class is not our economic programme, it is our threat of
slave-rebellion. I had been brought up in a part of the world where
democracy is a tradition, a word to conjure with, and I supposed
that this would be the case with any American--that I would only
have to prove that Socialism was democracy applied to industry. How
could I have imagined the kind of "democracy" which had been taught
to Sylvia by her Uncle Mandeville, the politician of the family, who
believed that America was soon to have a king, to keep the "foreign
riff-raff" in its place!

14. At this time I was living in a three-roomed apartment in one of
the new "model tenements" on the East Side. I had a saying about the
place, that it was "built for the proletariat and occupied by
cranks." What an example for Sylvia of the futility of charity--the
effort on the part of benevolent capitalists to civilise the poor by
putting bath-tubs in their homes, and the discovery that the
graceless creatures were using them for the storage of coals!

Having heard these strange stories, Sylvia was anxious to visit me,
and I was, of course, glad to invite her. I purchased a fancy brand
of tea, and some implements for the serving of it, and she came, and
went into raptures over my three rooms and bath, no one of which
would have made more than a closet in her own apartments. I
suspected that this was her Southern _noblesse oblige_, but I knew
also that in my living room there were some rows of books, which
would have meant more to Sylvia van Tuiver just then than the
contents of several clothes-closets.

I was pleased to discover that my efforts had not been wasted. She
had been thinking, and she had even found time, in the midst of her
distractions, to read part of a book. In the course of our talks I
had mentioned Veblen, and she had been reading snatches of his work
on the Leisure Class, and I was surprised, and not a little amused,
to observe her reaction to it.

When I talked about wages and hours of labour, I was dealing with
things that were remote from her, and difficult to make real; but
Veblen's theme, the idle rich, and the arts and graces whereby they
demonstrate their power, was the stuff of which her life was made.
The subtleties of social ostentation, the minute distinctions
between the newly-rich and the anciently-rich, the solemn
certainties of the latter and the quivering anxieties of the
former--all those were things which Sylvia knew as a bird knows the
way of the wind. To see the details of them analysed in learned,
scientific fashion, explained with great mouthfuls of words which
one had to look up in the dictionary--that was surely a new
discovery in the book-world! "Conspicuous leisure!" "Vicarious
consumption of goods!" "Oh, de-ah me, how que-ah!" exclaimed Sylvia.

And what a flood of anecdotes it let loose! A flood that bore us
straight back to Castleman Hall, and to all the scenes of her young
ladyhood! If only Lady Dee could have revised this book of Veblen's,
how many points she could have given to him! No details had been too
minute for the technique of Sylvia's great-aunt--the difference
between the swish of the right kind of silk petticoats and the wrong
kind; and yet her technique had been broad enough to take in a
landscape. "Every girl should have a background," had been one of
her maxims, and Sylvia had to have a special phaeton to drive, a
special horse to ride, special roses which no one else was allowed
to wear.

"Conspicuous expenditure of time," wrote Veblen. It was curious,
said Sylvia, but nobody was free from this kind of vanity. There was
dear old Uncle Basil, a more godly bishop never lived, and yet he
had a foible for carving! In his opinion the one certain test of a
gentleman was the ease with which he found the joints of all kinds
of meat, and he was in arms against the modern tendency to turn such
accomplishments over to butlers. He would hold forth on the subject,
illustrating his theories with an elegant knife, and Sylvia
remembered how her father and the Chilton boys had wired up the
joints of a duck for the bishop to work on. In the struggle the
bishop had preserved his dignity, but lost the duck, and the
bishop's wife, being also high-born, and with a long line of
traditions behind her, had calmly continued the conversation, while
the butler removed the smoking duck from her lap!

Such was the way of things at Castleman Hall! The wild, care-free
people--like half-grown children, romping their way through life!
There was really nothing too crazy for them to do, if the whim
struck them. Once a visiting cousin had ventured the remark that she
saw no reason why people should not eat rats; a barn-rat was clean
in its person, and far choicer in its food than a pig. Thereupon
"Miss Margaret" had secretly ordered the yard-man to secure a
barn-rat; she had had it broiled, and served in a dish of squirrels,
and had sat by and watched the young lady enjoy it! And this, mind
you, was Mrs. Castleman of Castleman Hall, mother of five children,
and as stately a dame as ever led the grand march at the Governor's
inaugural ball! "Major Castleman," she would say to her husband,
"you may take me into my bedroom, and when you have locked the door
securely, you may spit upon me, if you wish; but don't you dare even
to _imagine_ anything undignified about me in public!"

15. In course of time Sylvia and I became very good friends. Proud
as she was, she was lonely, and in need of some one to open her
eager mind to. Who was there safer to trust than this plain Western
woman, who lived so far, both in reality and in ideas, from the
great world of fashion?

Before we parted she considered it necessary to mention my
relationship to this world. She had a most acute social conscience.
She knew exactly what formalities she owed to everyone, just when
she ought to call, and how long she ought to stay, and what she
ought to ask the other person to do in return; she assumed that the
other knew it all exactly as well, and would suffer if she failed in
the slightest degree.

So now she had to throw herself upon my mercy. "You see," she
explained, "my husband wouldn't understand. I may be able to change
him gradually, but if I shock him all at once--"

"My dear Mrs. van Tuiver--" I smiled.

"You can't really imagine!" she persisted. "You see, he takes his
social position so seriously! And when you are conspicuous--when
everybody's talking about what you do--when everything that's the
least bit unusual is magnified--"

"My dear girl!" I broke in again. "Stop a moment and let me talk!"

"But I hate to have to think--"

"Don't worry about my thoughts! They are most happy ones! You must
understand that a Socialist cannot feel about such things as you do;
we work out our economic interpretation of them, and after that they
are simply so much data to us. I might meet one of your great
friends, and she might snub me, but I would never think she had
snubbed _me_--it would be my Western accent, and my forty-cent hat,
and things like that which had put me in a class in her mind. My
real self nobody can snub--certainly not until they've got at it."

"Ah!" said Sylvia, with shining eyes. "You have your own kind of
aristocracy, I see!"

"What I want," I said, "is you. I'm an old hen whose chickens have
grown up and left her, and I want something to mother. Your
wonderful social world is just a bother to me, because it keeps me
from gathering you into my arms as I'd like to. So what you do is to
think of some role for me to play, so that I can come to see you;
let me be advising you about your proposed day-nursery, or let me
be a tutor of something, or a nice, respectable sewing-woman who
darns the toes of your silk stockings!"

She laughed. "If you suppose that I'm allowed to wear my stockings
until they have holes in them, you don't understand the perquisites
of maids." She thought a moment, and then added: "You might come to
trim hats for me."

By that I knew that we were really friends. If it does not seem to
you a bold thing for Sylvia to have made a joke about my hat, it is
only because you do not yet know her. I have referred to her
money-consciousness and her social-consciousness; I would be
idealizing her if I did not refer to another aspect of her which
appalled me when I came to realise it--her clothes-consciousness.
She knew every variety of fabric and every shade of colour and every
style of design that ever had been delivered of the frenzied
sartorial imagination. She had been trained in all the infinite
minutiae which distinguished the right from the almost right; she
would sweep a human being at one glance, and stick him in a pigeon
hole of her mind for ever--because of his clothes. When later on she
had come to be conscious of this clothes-consciousness, she told me
that ninety-nine times out of a hundred she had found this method of
appraisal adequate for the purposes of society life. What a curious
comment upon our civilization--that all that people had to ask of
one another, all they had to give to one another, should be
expressible in terms of clothes!

16. I had set out to educate Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver in the things I
thought she needed to know. A part of my programme was to find some
people of modern sympathies whom she might meet without offence to
her old prejudices. The first person I thought of was Mrs. Jessie
Frothingham, who was the head of a fashionable girls' school, just
around the corner from Miss Abercrombie's where Sylvia herself had
received the finishing touch. Mrs. Frothingham's was as exclusive
and expensive a school as the most proper person could demand, and
great was Sylvia's consternation when I told her that its principal
was a member of the Socialist party, and made no bones about
speaking in public for us.

How in the world did she manage it? For one thing, I answered, she
ran a good school--nobody had ever been heard to deny that. For
another, she was an irresistibly serene and healthy person, who
would look one of her millionaire "papas" in the eye and tell him
what was what with so much decision; it would suddenly occur to the
great man that if his daughter could be made into so capable a
woman, he would not care what ticket she might vote.

Then too, it was testimony to the headway we are making that we are
ceasing to be dangerous, and getting to be picturesque. In these
days of strenuous social competition, when mammas are almost at
their wits' end for some new device, when it costs incredible sums
to make no impression at all--here was offered a new and inexpensive
way of being unique. There could be no question that men were
getting to like serious women; the most amazing subjects were coming
up at dinner-parties, and you might hear the best people speak
disrespectfully of their own money, which means that the new
Revolution will have not merely its "Egalit� Orleans," but also some
of the ladies of his family!

I telephoned from Sylvia's house to Mrs. Frothingham, who answered:
"Wouldn't you like Mrs. van Tuiver to hear a speech? I am to speak
next week at the noon-day Wall Street meeting." I passed the
question on, and Sylvia answered with an exclamation of delight:
"Would a small boy like to attend a circus?"

It was arranged that Sylvia was to take us in her car. You may
picture me with my grand friends--an old speckled hen in the company
of two golden pheasants. I kept very quiet and let them get
acquainted, knowing that my cause was safe in the hands of one so
perfectly tailored as Mrs. Frothingham.

Sylvia expressed her delight at the idea of hearing a Socialist
speech, and her amazement that the head of Mrs. Frothingham's should
be so courageous, and meantime we threaded our way through the
tangle of trucks and surface-cars on Broadway, and came to the
corner of Wall Street. Here Mrs. Frothingham said she would get out
and walk; it was quite likely that someone might recognise Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver, and she ought not to be seen arriving with the
speaker. Sylvia, who would not willingly have committed a breach of
etiquette towards a bomb-throwing anarchist, protested at this, but
Mrs. Frothingham laughed good-naturedly, saying that it would be
time enough for Mrs. van Tuiver to commit herself when she knew what
she believed.

The speaking was to be from the steps of the Sub-treasury. We made a
_d�tour,_ and came up Broad Street, stopping a little way from the
corner. These meetings had been held all through the summer and
fall, so that people had learned to expect them; although it lacked
some minutes of noon, there was already a crowd gathered. A group of
men stood upon the broad steps, one with a red banner and several
others with armfuls of pamphlets and books. With them was our
friend, who looked at us and smiled, but gave no other sign of
recognition.

Sylvia pushed back the collar of her sable coat, and sat erect in
her shining blue velvet, her eyes and her golden hair shining
beneath the small brim of a soft velvet hat. As she gazed eagerly at
the busy throngs of men hurrying about this busy corner, she
whispered to me: "I haven't been so excited since my _d�but_ party!"

The crowd increased until it was difficult to get through Wall
Street. The bell of Old Trinity was tolling the hour of noon, and
the meeting was about to begin, when suddenly I heard an exclamation
from Sylvia, and turning, saw a well-dressed man pushing his way
from the office of Morgan and Company towards us. Sylvia clutched my
hand where it lay on the seat of the car, and half gasped: "My
husband!"

17. Of course I had been anxious to see Douglas van Tuiver. I had
heard Claire Lepage's account of him, and Sylvia's, also I had seen
pictures of him in the newspapers, and had studied them with some
care, trying to imagine what sort of personage he might be. I knew
that he was twenty-four, but the man who came towards us I would
have taken to be forty. His face was sombre, with large features and
strongly marked lines about the mouth; he was tall and thin, and
moved with decision, betraying no emotion even in this moment of
surprise. "What are you doing here?" were his first words.

For my part, I was badly "rattled"; I knew by the clutch of Sylvia's
hand that she was too. But here I got a lesson in the nature of
"social training." Some of the bright colour had faded from her
face, but she spoke with the utmost coolness, the words coming
naturally and simply: "We can't get through the crowd." And at the
same time she looked about her, as much as to say: "You can see for
yourself." (One of the maxims of Lady Dee had set forth that a lady
never told a lie if she could avoid it.)

Sylvia's husband looked about, saying: "Why don't you call an
officer?" He started to follow his own suggestion, and I thought
then that my friend would miss her meeting. But she had more nerve
than I imagined.

"No," she said. "Please don't."

"Why not?" Still there was no emotion in the cold, grey eyes.

"Because--I think there's something going on."

"What of that?"

"I'm not in a hurry, and I'd like to see."

He stood for a moment looking at the crowd. Mrs. Frothingham had
come forward, evidently intending to speak. "What is this, Ferris?"
he demanded of the chauffeur.

"I'm not sure, sir," said the man. "I think it's a Socialist
meeting." (He was, of course, not missing the little comedy. I
wondered what he thought!)

"A Socialist meeting?" said van Tuiver; then, to his wife: "You
don't want to stay for that!"

Again Sylvia astonished me. "I'd like to very much," she answered
simply.

He made no reply. I saw him stare at her, and then I saw his glance
take me in. I sat in a corner as inconspicuous as I could make
myself. I wondered whether I was a sempstress or a tutor, and
whether either of these functionaries were introduced, and whether
they shook hands or not.

Mrs. Frothingham had taken her stand at the base of Washington's
statue. Had she by any chance identified the tall and immaculate
gentleman who stood beside the automobile? Before she had said three
sentences I made sure that she had done so, and I was appalled at
her audacity.

"Fellow citizens," she began--"fellow-buccaneers of Wall Street."
And when the mild laughter had subsided: "What I have to say is
going to be addressed to one individual among you--the American
millionaire. I assume there is one present--if no actual
millionaire, then surely several who are destined to be, and not
less than a thousand who aspire to be. So hear me, Mr. Millionaire,"
this with a smile, which gave you a sense of a reserve fund of
energy and good humour. She had the crowd with her from the
start--all but one. I stole a glance at the millionaire, and saw
that he was not smiling.

"Won't you get in?" asked his wife, and he answered coldly: "No,
I'll wait till you've had enough."

"Last summer I had a curious experience," said the speaker. "I was a
guest at a tennis match, played upon the grounds of a State
insane-asylum, the players being the doctors of the institution.
Here, on a beautiful sunshiny afternoon, were ladies and gentlemen
clad in festive white, enjoying a holiday, while in the background
stood a frowning building with iron-barred gates and windows, from
which one heard now and then the howlings of the maniacs. Some of
the less fortunate of these victims of fate had been let loose, and
while we played tennis, they chased the balls. All afternoon, while
I sipped tea and chatted and watched the games, I said to myself:
'Here is the most perfect simile of our civilization that has ever
come to me. Some people wear white and play tennis all day, while
other people chase the balls, or howl in dungeons in the
background!' And that is the problem I wish to put before my
American millionaire--the problem of what I will call our lunatic-
asylum stage of civilization. Mind you, this condition is all very
well so long as we can say that the lunatics are incurable--that
there is nothing we can do but shut our ears to their howling, and
go ahead with our tennis. But suppose the idea were to dawn upon us
that it is only because we played tennis all day that the lunatic-
asylum is crowded, then might not the howls grow unendurable to us,
and the game lose its charm?"

Stealing glances about me, I saw that several people were watching
the forty-or-fifty-times-over millionaire; they had evidently
recognised him, and were enjoying the joke. "Haven't you had enough
of this?" he suddenly demanded of his wife, and she answered,
guilelessly: "No, let's wait. I'm interested."

"Now, listen to me, Mr. American Millionaire," the speaker was
continuing. "You are the one who plays tennis, and we, who chase the
balls for you--we are the lunatics. And my purpose to-day is to
prove to you that it is only because you play tennis all day that we
have to chase balls all the day, and to tell you that some time soon
we are going to cease to be lunatics, and that then you will have to
chase your own balls! And don't, in your amusement over this
illustration, lose sight of the serious nature of what I am talking
about--the horrible economic lunacy which is known as poverty, and
which is responsible for most of the evils we have in this world
to-day--for crime and prostitution, suicide, insanity and war. My
purpose is to show you, not by any guess of mine, or any appeals to
your faith, but by cold business facts which can be understood in
Wall Street, that this economic lunacy is one which can be cured;
that we have the remedy in our hands, and lack nothing but the
intelligence to apply it."

18. I do not want to bore you with a Socialist speech. I only want
to give you an idea of the trap into which Mr. Douglas van Tuiver
had been drawn. He stood there, rigidly aloof while the speaker went
on to explain the basic facts of wealth-production in modern
society. She quoted from Kropotkin: "'Fields, Factories and Work-
shops,' on sale at this meeting for a quarter!"--showing how by
modern intensive farming--no matter of theory, but methods which
were in commercial use in hundreds of places--it would be possible
to feed the entire population of the globe from the soil of the
British Isles alone. She showed by the bulletins of the United
States Government how the machine process had increased the
productive power of the individual labourer ten, twenty, a hundred
fold. So vast was man's power of producing wealth today, and yet the
labourer lived in dire want just as in the days of crude
hand-industry!

So she came back to her millionaire, upon whom this evil rested. He
was the master of the machine for whose profit the labourer had to
produce. He could only employ the labourer to produce what could be
sold at a profit; and so the stream of prosperity was choked at its
source. "It is you, Mr. Millionaire, who are to blame for poverty;
it is because so many millions of dollars must be paid to you in
profits that so many millions of men must live in want. In other
words, precisely as I declared at the outset, it is your playing
tennis which is responsible for the lunatics chasing the balls!"

I wish that I might give some sense of the speaker's mastery of this
situation, the extent to which she had communicated her good-humour
to the crowd. You heard ripple after ripple of laughter, you saw
everywhere about you eager faces, following every turn of the
argument. No one could resist the contagion of interest--save only
the American millionaire! He stood impassive, never once smiling,
never once betraying a trace of feeling. Venturing to watch him more
closely, however, I could see the stern lines deepening about his
mouth, and his long, lean face growing more set.

The speaker had outlined the remedy--a change from the system of
production for profit to one of production for use. She went on to
explain how the change was coming; the lunatic classes were
beginning to doubt the divine nature of the rules of the asylum, and
they were preparing to mutiny, and take possession of the place. And
here I saw that Sylvia's husband had reached his limit. He turned to
her: "Haven't you had enough of this?"

"Why, no," she began. "If you don't mind--"

"I do mind very much," he said, abruptly. "I think you are
committing a breach of taste to stay here, and I would be greatly
obliged if you would leave."

And without really waiting for Sylvia's reply, he directed, "Back
out of here, Ferris."

The chauffeur cranked up, and sounded his horn--which naturally had
the effect of disturbing the meeting. People supposed we were going
to try to get through the crowd ahead--and there was no place where
anyone could move. But van Tuiver went to the rear of the car,
saying, in a voice of quiet authority: "A little room here, please."
And so, foot by foot, we backed away from the meeting, and when we
had got clear of the throng, the master of the car stepped in, and
we turned and made our way down Broad Street.

And now I was to get a lesson in the aristocratic ideal. Of course
van Tuiver was angry; I believe he even suspected his wife of having
known of the meeting. I supposed he would ask some questions; I
supposed that at least he would express his opinion of the speech,
his disgust that a woman of education should make such a spectacle
of herself. Such husbands as I had been familiar with had never
hesitated to vent their feelings under such circumstances. But from
Douglas van Tuiver there came--not a word! He sat, perfectly
straight, staring before him, like a sphinx; and Sylvia, after one
or two swift glances at him, began to gossip cheerfully about her
plans for the day-nursery for working-women!

So for a few blocks, until suddenly she leaned forward. "Stop here,
Ferris." And then, turning to me, "Here is the American Trust
Company."

"The American Trust Company?" I echoed, in my dumb stupidity.

"Yes--that is where the check is payable," said Sylvia, and gave me
a pinch.

And so I comprehended, and gathered up my belongings and got out.
She shook my hand warmly, and her husband raised his hat in a very
formal salute, after which the car sped on up the street. I stood
staring after it, in somewhat the state of mind of any humble rustic
who may have been present when Elijah was borne into the heavens by
the chariot of fire!

19. Sylvia had been something less than polite to me; and so I had
not been home more than an hour before there came a messenger-boy
with a note. By way of reassuring her, I promised to come to see her
the next morning; and when I did, and saw her lovely face so full of
concern, I forgot entirely her worldly greatness, and did what I had
longed to do from the beginning--put my arms about her and kissed
her.

"My dear girl," I protested, "I don't want to be a burden in your
life--I want to help you!'"

"But," she exclaimed, "what must you have thought--"

"I thought I had made a lucky escape!" I laughed.

She was proud--proud as an Indian; it was hard for her to make
admissions about her husband. But then--we were like two errant
school-girls, who had been caught m an escapade! "I don't know what
I'm going to do about him," she said, with a wry smile. "He really
won't listen--I can't make any impression on him."

"Did he guess that you'd come there on purpose?" I asked.

"I told him," she answered.

"You _told_ him!"

"I'd meant to keep it secret--I wouldn't have minded telling him a
fib about a little thing. But he made it so very serious!"

I could understand that it must have been serious after the telling.
I waited for her to add what news she chose.

"It seems," she said, "that my husband has a cousin, a pupil of Mrs.
Frothingham's. You can imagine!"

"I can imagine Mrs. Frothingham may lose a pupil."

"No; my husband says his Uncle Archibald always was a fool. But how
can anyone be so narrow! He seemed to take Mrs. Frothingham as a
personal affront."

This was the most definite bit of vexation against her husband that
she had ever let me see. I decided to turn it into a jest. "Mrs.
Frothingham will be glad to know she was understood," I said.

"But seriously, why can't men have open minds about politics and
money?" She went on in a worried voice: "I knew he was like this
when I met him at Harvard. He was living in his own house, aloof
from the poorer men--the men who were most worth while, it seemed to
me. And when I told him of the bad effect he was having on these men
and on his own character as well, he said he would do whatever I
asked--he even gave up his house and went to live in a dormitory. So
I thought I had some influence on him. But now, here is the same
thing again, only I find that one can't take a stand against one's
husband. At least, he doesn't admit the right." She hesitated. "It
doesn't seem loyal to talk about it."

"My dear girl," I said with an impulse of candour, "there isn't much
you can tell me about that problem. My own marriage went to pieces
on that rock."

I saw a look of surprise upon her face. "I haven't told you my story
yet," I said. "Some day I will--when you feel you know me well
enough for us to exchange confidences."

There was more than a hint of invitation in this. After a silence,
she said: "One's instinct is to hide one's troubles."

"Sylvia," I answered, "let me tell you about us. You must realise
that you've been a wonderful person to me; you belong to a world I
never had anything to do with, and never expected to get a glimpse
of. It's the wickedness of our class-civilization that human beings
can't be just human beings to each other--a king can hardly have a
friend. Even after I've overcome the impulse I have to be awed by
your luxury and your grandness; I'm conscious of the fact that
everybody else is awed by them. If I so much as mention that I've
met you, I see people start and stare at me--instantly I become a
personage. It makes me angry, because I want to know _you_."

She was gazing at me, not saying a word. I went on: "I'd never have
thought it possible for anyone to be in your position and be real
and straight and human, but I realise that you have managed to work
that miracle. So I want to love you and help you, in every way I
know how. But you must understand, I can't ask for your confidence,
as I could for any other woman's. There is too much vulgar curiosity
about the rich and great, and I can't pretend to be unaware of that
hatefulness; I can't help shrinking from it. So all I can say is--if
you need me, if you ever need a real friend, why, here I am; you may
be sure I understand, and won't tell your secrets to anyone else."

With a little mist of tears in her eyes, Sylvia put out her hand and
touched mine. And so we went into a chamber alone together, and shut
the cold and suspicious world outside.

20. We knew each other well enough now to discuss the topic which
has been the favourite of women since we sat in the doorways of
caves and pounded wild grain in stone mortars--the question of our
lords, who had gone hunting, and who might be pleased to beat us on
their return. I learned all that Sylvia had been taught on the
subject of the male animal; I opened that amazing unwritten volume
of woman traditions, the maxims of Lady Dee Lysle.

Sylvia's maternal great-aunt had been a great lady out of a great
age, and incidentally a grim and grizzled veteran of the sex-war.
Her philosophy started from a recognition of the physical and
economic inferiority of woman, as complete as any window-smashing
suffragette could have formulated, but her remedy for it was a
purely individualist one, the leisure-class woman's skill in trading
upon her sex. Lady Dee did not use that word, of course--she would
as soon have talked of her esophagus. Her formula was "charm," and
she had taught Sylvia that the preservation of "charm" was the end
of woman's existence, the thing by which she remained a lady, and
without which she was more contemptible than the beasts.

She had taught this, not merely by example and casual anecdote, but
by precepts as solemnly expounded as bible-texts. "Remember, my
dear, a woman with a husband is like a lion-tamer with a whip!" And
the old lady would explain what a hard and dangerous life was lived
by lion-tamers, how their safety depended upon life-long
distrustfulness of the creatures over whom they ruled. She would
tell stories of the rending and maiming of luckless ones, who had
forgotten for a brief moment the nature of the male animal! "Yes, my
dear," she would say, "believe in love; but let the man believe
first!" Her maxims never sinned by verbosity.

The end of all this was not merely food and shelter, a home and
children, it was the supremacy of a sex, its ability to shape life
to its whim. By means of this magic "charm"--a sort of perpetual
individual sex-strike--a woman turned her handicaps into advantages
and her chains into ornaments; she made herself a rare and wonderful
creature, up to whom men gazed in awe. It was "romantic love," but
preserved throughout life, instead of ceasing with courtship.

All the Castleman women understood these arts, and employed them.
There was Aunt Nannie, when she cracked her whip the dear old
bishop-lion would jump as if he had been shot! Did not the whole
State know the story of how once he had been called upon at a
banquet and had risen and remarked: "Ladies and gentlemen, I had
intended to make a speech to you this evening, but I see that my
wife is present, so I must beg you to excuse me." The audience
roared, and Aunt Nannie was furious, but poor dear Bishop Chilton
had spoken but the literal truth, that he could not spread the wings
of his eloquence in the presence of his "better half."

And with Major Castleman, though it seemed different, it was really
the same. Sylvia's mother had let herself get stout--which seemed a
dangerous mark of confidence in the male animal. But the major was
fifteen years older than his wife, and she had a weak heart with
which to intimidate him. Now and then the wilfulness of Castleman
Lysle would become unendurable in the house, and his father would
seize him and turn him over his knee. His screams would bring "Miss
Margaret" flying to the rescue: "Major Castleman, how dare you spank
one of _my_ children?" And she would seize the boy and march off in
terrible haughtiness, and lock herself and her child in her room,
and for hours afterwards the poor major would wander about the
house, suffering the lonelines of the guilty soul. You would hear
him tapping gently at his lady's door. "Honey! Honey! Are you mad
with me?" "Major Castleman," the stately answer would come, "will
you oblige me by leaving one room in this house to which I may
retire?"

21. I would give you a wrong idea of Sylvia if I did not make clear
that along with this sophistication as to the play-aspects of sex,
there went the most incredible ignorance as to its practical
realities. In my arguments I had thought to appeal to her by
referring to that feature of wage-slavery which more than even
child-labour stirs the moral sense of women, but to my utter
consternation I discovered that here was a woman nearly a year
married who did not know what prostitution was. A suspicion had
begun to dawn upon her, and she asked me, timidly: Could it be
possible that that intimacy which was given in marriage could become
a thing of barter in the market-place? When I told her the truth, I
found her horror so great that it was impossible to go on talking
economics. How could I say that women were driven to such things by
poverty? Surely a woman who was not bad at heart would starve,
before she would sell her body to a man!

Perhaps I should have been more patient with her, but I am bitter on
these subjects. "My dear Mrs. van Tuiver," I said, "there is a lot
of nonsense talked about this matter. There is very little sex-life
for women without a money-price made clear in advance."

"I don't understand," she said.

"I don't know about your case," I replied, "but when I married, it
was because I was unhappy and wanted a home of my own. And if the
truth were told, that is why most women marry."

"But what has THAT to do with it?" she cried. She really did not
see!

"What is the difference--except that such women stand out for a
maintenance, while the prostitute takes cash?" I saw that I had
shocked her, and I said: "You must be humble about these things,
because you have never been poor, and you cannot judge those who
have been. But surely you must have known worldly women who married
rich men for their money. And surely you admit that that is
prostitution?"

She fell suddenly silent, and I saw what I had done, and, no doubt,
you will say I should have been ashamed of myself. But when one has
seen as much of misery and injustice as I have, one cannot be so
patient with the fine artificial delicacies and sentimentalities of
the idle rich. I went ahead to tell her some stories, showing her
what poverty actually meant to women.

Then, as she remained silent, I asked her how she had managed to
remain so ignorant. Surely she must have met with the word
"prostitution" in books; she must have heard allusions to the
"demi-monde."

"Of course," she said, "I used to see conspicuous-looking women at
the race-track in New Orleans; I've sat near them in restaurants,
I've known by my mother's looks and her agitation that they must be
bad women. But you see, I didn't know what it meant--I had nothing
but a vague feeling of something dreadful."

I smiled. "Then Lady Dee did not tell you everything about the
possibilities of her system of 'charm.'"

"No," said Sylvia. "Evidently she didn't!" She sat staring at me,
trying to get up the courage to go on with this plain speaking.

And at last the courage came. "I think it is wrong," she exclaimed.
"Girls ought not to be kept so ignorant! They ought to know what
such things mean. Why, I didn't even know what marriage meant!"

"Can that be true?" I asked.

"All my life I had thought of marriage, in a way; I had been trained
to think of it with every eligible man I met--but to me it meant a
home, a place of my own to entertain people in. I pictured myself
going driving with my husband, giving dinner-parties to his friends.
I knew I'd have to let him kiss me, but beyond that--I had a vague
idea of something, but I didn't think. I had been deliberately
trained not to let myself think--to run away from every image that
came to me. And I went on dreaming of what I'd wear, and how I'd
greet my husband when he came home in the evening."

"Didn't you think about children?"

"Yes--but I thought of the CHILDREN. I thought what they'd look
like, and how they'd talk, and how I'd love them. I don't know if
many young girls shut their minds up like that."

She was speaking with agitation, and I was gazing into her eyes,
reading more than she knew I was reading. I was nearer to solving
the problem that had been baffling me. And I wanted to take her
hands in mine, and say: "You would never have married him if you'd
understood!"

22. Sylvia thought she ought to have been taught, but when she came
to think of it she was unable to suggest who could have done the
teaching. "Your mother?" I asked, and she had to laugh, in spite of
the seriousness of her mood. "Poor dear mamma! When they sent me up
here to boarding school, she took me off and tried to tell me not to
listen to vulgar talk from the girls. She managed to make it clear
that I mustn't listen to something, and I managed not to listen. I'm
sure that even now she would rather have her tongue cut out than
talk to me about such things."

"I talked to my children," I assured her.

"And you didn't feel embarrassed?"

"I did in the beginning--I had the same shrinkings to overcome. But
I had a tragedy behind me to push me on."

I told her the story of my nephew, a shy and sensitive lad, who used
to come to me for consolation, and became as dear to me as my own
children. When he was seventeen he grew moody and despondent; he ran
away from home for six months and more, and then returned and was
forgiven--but that seemed to make no difference. One night he came
to see me, and I tried hard to get him to tell me what was wrong. He
wouldn't, but went away, and several hours later I found a letter he
had shoved under the table-cloth. I read it, and rushed out and
hitched up a horse and drove like mad to my brother-in-law's, but I
got there too late, the poor boy had taken a shot-gun to his room,
and put the muzzle into his mouth, and set off the trigger with his
foot. In the letter he told me what was the matter--he had got into
trouble with a woman of the town, and had caught syphilis. He had
gone away and tried to get cured, but had fallen into the hands of a
quack, who had taken all his money and left his health worse than
ever, so in despair and shame the poor boy had shot his head off.

I paused, uncertain if Sylvia would understand the story. "Do you
know what syphilis is?" I asked.

"I suppose--I have heard of what we call a 'bad disease'" she said.

"It's a very bad disease. But if the words convey to you that it's a
disease that bad people get, I should tell you that most men take
the chance of getting it; yet they are cruel enough to despise those
upon whom the ill-luck falls. My poor nephew had been utterly
ignorant--I found out that from his father, too late. An instinct
had awakened in him of which he knew absolutely nothing; his
companions had taught him what it meant, and he had followed their
lead. And then had come the horror and the shame--and some vile,
ignorant wretch to trade upon it, and cast the boy off when he was
penniless. So he had come home again, with his gnawing secret; I
pictured him wandering about, trying to make up his mind to confide
in me, wavering between that and the horrible deed he did."

I stopped, because even to this day I cannot tell the story without
tears. I cannot keep a picture of the boy in my room, because of the
self-reproaches that haunt me. "You can understand," I said to
Sylvia, "I never could forget such a lesson. I swore a vow over the
poor lad's body, that I would never let a boy or girl that I could
reach go out in ignorance into the world. I read up on the subject,
and for a while I was a sort of fanatic--I made people talk, young
people and old people. I broke down the taboos wherever I went, and
while I shocked a good many, I knew that I helped a good many more."

All that was, of course, inconceivable to Sylvia. How curious was
the contrast of her one experience in the matter of venereal
disease. She told me how she had been instrumental in making a match
between her friend, Harriet Atkinson and a young scion of an ancient
and haughty family of Charleston, and how after the marriage her
friend's health had begun to give way, until now she was an utter
wreck, living alone in a dilapidated antebellum mansion, seeing no
one but negro servants, and praying for death to relieve her of her
misery.

"Of course, I don't really know," said Sylvia. "Perhaps it was
this--this disease that you speak of. None of my people would tell
me--I doubt if they really know themselves. It was just before my
own wedding, so you can understand it had a painful effect upon me.
It happened that I read something in a magazine, and I thought
that--that possibly my fianc�e--that someone ought to ask him, you
understand--"

She stopped, and the blood was crimson in her cheeks, with the
memory of her old excitement, and some fresh excitement added to it.
There are diseases of the mind as well as of the body, and one of
them is called prudery.

"I can understand," I said. "It was certainly your right to be
reassured on such a point."

"Well, I tried to talk to my Aunt Varina about it; then I wrote to
Uncle Basil, and asked him to write to Douglas. At first he
refused--he only consented to do it when I threatened to go to my
father."

"What came of it in the end?"

"Why, my uncle wrote, and Douglas answered very kindly that he
understood, and that it was all right--I had nothing to fear. I
never expected to mention the incident to anyone again."

"Lots of people have mentioned such things to me," I responded, to
reassure her. Then after a pause: "Tell me, how was it, if you
didn't know the meaning of marriage, how could you connect the
disease with it?"

She answered, gazing with the wide-open, innocent eyes: "I had no
idea how people gave it to each other. I thought maybe they got it
by kissing."

I thought to myself again: The horror of this superstition of
prudery! Can one think of anything more destructive to life than the
placing of a taboo upon such matters? Here is the whole of the
future at stake--the health, the sanity, the very existence of the
race. And what fiend has been able to contrive it that we feel like
criminals when we mention the subject?

23. Our intimacy progressed, and the time came when Sylvia told me
about her marriage. She had accepted Douglas van Tuiver because she
had lost Frank Shirley, and her heart was broken. She could never
imagine herself loving any other man; and not knowing exactly what
marriage meant, it had been easier for her to think of her family,
and to follow their guidance. They had told her that love would
come; Douglas had implored her to give him a chance to teach her to
love him. She had considered what she could do with his money--both
for her home-people and for those she spoke of vaguely as "the
poor." But now she was making the discovery that she could not do
very much for these "poor."

"It isn't that my husband is mean," she said. "On the contrary, the
slightest hint will bring me any worldly thing I want. I have homes
in half a dozen parts of America--I have _carte blanche_ to open
accounts in two hemispheres. If any of my people need money I can
get it; but if I want it for myself, he asks me what I'm doing with
it--and so I run into the stone-wall of his ideas."

At first the colliding with this wall had merely pained and
bewildered her. But now the combination of Veblen and myself had
helped her to realize what it meant. Douglas van Tuiver spent his
money upon a definite system: whatever went to the maintaining of
his social position, whatever added to the glory, prestige and power
of the van Tuiver name--that money was well-spent; while money spent
to any other end was money wasted--and this included all ideas and
"causes." And when the master of the house knew that his money was
being wasted, it troubled him.

"It wasn't until after I married him that I realized how idle his
life is," she remarked. "At home all the men have something to do,
running their plantations, or getting elected to some office. But
Douglas never does anything that I can possibly think is useful."

His fortune was invested in New York City real-estate, she went on
to explain. There was an office, with a small army of clerks and
agents to attend to it--a machine which had been built up and handed
on to him by his ancestors. It sufficed if he dropped in for an hour
or two once a week when he was in the city, and signed a batch of
documents now and then when he was away. His life was spent in the
company of people whom the social system had similarly deprived of
duties; and they had, by generations of experiment, built up for
themselves a new set of duties, a life which was wholly without
relationship to reality. Into this unreal existence Sylvia had
married, and it was like a current sweeping her in its course. So
long as she went with it, all was well; but let her try to catch
hold of something and stop, and it would tear her loose and almost
strangle her.

As time went on, she gave me strange glimpses into this world. Her
husband did not seem really to enjoy its life. As Sylvia put it, "He
takes it for granted that he has to do all the proper things that
the proper people do. He hates to be conspicuous, he says. I point
out to him that the proper things are nearly always conspicuous, but
he replies that to fail to do them would be even more conspicuous."

It took me a long time to get really acquainted with Sylvia, because
of the extent to which this world was clamouring for her. I used to
drop in when she 'phoned me she had half an hour. I would find her
dressing for something, and she would send her maid away, and we
would talk until she would be late for some function; and that might
be a serious matter, because somebody would feel slighted. She was
always "on pins and needles" over such questions of precedent; it
seemed as if everybody in her world must be watching everybody else.
There was a whole elaborate science of how to treat the people you
met, so that they would not feel slighted--or so that they would
feel slighted, according to circumstances.

To the enjoyment of such a life it was essential that the person
should believe in it. Douglas van Tuiver did believe in it; it was
his religion, the only one he had. (Churchman as he was, his church
was a part of the social routine.) He was proud of Sylvia, and
apparently satisfied when he could take her at his side; and Sylvia
went, because she was his wife, and that was what wives were for.
She had tried her best to be happy; she had told herself that she
_was_ happy yet all the time realizing that a woman who is really
happy does not have to tell herself.

Earlier in life she had quaffed and enjoyed the wine of applause. I
recollect vividly her telling me of the lure her beauty had been to
her--the most terrible temptation that could come to a woman. "I
walk into a brilliant room, and I feel the thrill of admiration that
goes through the crowd. I have a sudden sense of my own physical
perfection--a glow all over me! I draw a deep breath--I feel a surge
of exaltation. I say, 'I am victorious--I can command! I have this
supreme crown of womanly grace--I am all-powerful with it--the world
is mine!'"

As she spoke the rapture was in her voice, and I looked at her--and
yes, she was beautiful! The supreme crown was hers!

"I see other beautiful women," she went on--and swift anger came
into her voice. "I see what they are doing with this power!
Gratifying their vanity--turning men into slaves of their whim!
Squandering money upon empty pleasures--and with the dreadful plague
of poverty spreading in the world! I used to go to my father, 'Oh,
papa, why must there be so many poor people? Why should we have
servants--why should they have to wait on me, and I do nothing for
them?' He would try to explain to me that it was the way of Nature.
Mamma would tell me it was the will of the Lord--'The poor ye have
always with you'--'Servants, obey your masters'--and so on. But in
spite of the Bible texts, I felt guilty. And now I come to Douglas
with the same plea--and it only makes him angry! He has been to
college and has a lot of scientific phrases--he tells me it's 'the
struggle for existence,' 'the elimination of the unfit'--and so on.
I say to him, 'First we make people unfit, and then we have to
eliminate them.' He cannot see why I do not accept what learned
people tell me--why I persist in questioning and suffering."

She paused, and then added, "It's as if he were afraid I might find
out something he doesn't want me to! He's made me give him a promise
that I won't see Mrs. Frothingham again!" And she laughed. "I
haven't told him about you!"

I answered, needless to say, that I hoped she would keep the secret!

24. All this time I was busy with my child-labour work. We had an
important bill before the legislature that session, and I was doing
what I could to work up sentiment for it. I talked at every
gathering where I could get a hearing; I wrote letters to
newspapers; I sent literature to lists of names. I racked my mind
for new schemes, and naturally, at such times, I could not help
thinking of Sylvia. How much she could do, if only she would!

I spared no one, least of all myself, and so it was not easy to
spare her. The fact that I had met her was the gossip of the office,
and everybody was waiting for something to happen. "How about Mrs.
van Tuiver?" my "chief" would ask, at intervals. "If she would
_only_ go on our press committee" my stenographer would sigh.

The time came when our bill was in committee, a place of peril for
bills. I went to Albany to see what could be done. I met half a
hundred legislators, of whom perhaps half-a-dozen had some human
interest in my subject; the rest, well, it was discouraging. Where
was the force that would stir them, make them forget their own
particular little grafts, and serve the public welfare in defiance
to hostile interests?

Where was it? I came back to New York to look for it, and after a
blue luncheon with the members of our committee, I came away with my
mind made up--I would sacrifice my Sylvia to this desperate
emergency.

I knew just what I had to do. So far she had heard speeches about
social wrongs, or read books about them; she had never been face to
face with the reality of them. Now I persuaded her to take a morning
off, and see some of the sights of the underworld of toil. We
foreswore the royal car, and likewise the royal furs and velvets;
she garbed herself in plain appearing dark blue and went down town
in the Subway like common mortals, visiting paper-box factories and
flower factories, tenement homes where whole families sat pasting
toys and gimcracks for fourteen or sixteen hours a day, and still
could not buy enough food to make full-sized men and women of them.

She was Dante, and I was Virgil, our inferno was an endless
procession of tortured faces--faces of women, haggard and mournful,
faces of little children, starved and stunted, dulled and dumb.
Several times we stopped to talk with these people--one little
Jewess girl I knew whose three tiny sisters had been roasted alive
in a sweatshop fire. This child had jumped from a fourth-story
window, and been miraculously caught by a fireman. She said that
some man had started the fire, and been caught, but the police had
let him get away. So I had to explain to Sylvia that curious
bye-product (sic) of the profit system known as the "Arson Trust."
Authorities estimated that incendiarism was responsible for the
destruction of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of property in
America every year. So, of course, the business of starting fires
was a paying one, and the "fire-bug," like the "cadet" and the
dive-keeper, was a part of the "system." So it was quite a possible
thing that the man who had burned up this little girl's three
sisters might have been allowed to escape.

I happened to say this in the little girl's hearing, and I saw her
pitiful strained eyes fixed upon Sylvia. Perhaps this lovely,
soft-voiced lady was a fairy god-mother, come to free her sisters
from an evil spell and to punish the wicked criminal! I saw Sylvia
turn her head away, and search for her handkerchief; as we groped
our way down the dark stairs, she caught my hand, whispering: "Oh,
my God! my God!"

It had even more effect than I had intended; not only did she say
that she would do something--anything that would be of use--but she
told me as we rode back home that her mind was made up to stop the
squandering of her husband's money. He had been planning a costume
ball for a couple of months later, an event which would keep the van
Tuiver name in condition, and would mean that he and other people
would spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars. As we rode home
in the roaring Subway, Sylvia sat beside me, erect and tense, saying
that if the ball were given, it would be without the presence of the
hostess.

I struck while the iron was hot, and got her permission to put her
name upon our committee list. She said, moreover, that she would get
some free time, and be more than a mere name to us. What were the
duties of a member of our committee?

"First," I said, "to know the facts about child-labour, as you have
seen them to-day, and second, to help other people to know."

"And how is that to be done?"

"Well, for instance, there is that hearing before the legislative
committee. You remember I suggested that you appear."

"Yes," she said in a low voice. I could almost hear the words that
were in her mind: "What would _he_ say?"

25. Sylvia's name went upon our letter-heads and other literature,
and almost at once things began to happen. In a day or two there
came a reporter, saying he had noticed her name. Was it true that
she had become interested in our work? Would I please give him some
particulars, as the public would naturally want to know.

I admitted that Mrs. van Tuiver had joined the committee; she
approved of our work and desired to further it. That was all. He
asked: Would she give an interview? And I answered that I was sure
she would not. Then would I tell something about how she had come to
be interested in the work? It was a chance to assist our propaganda,
added the reporter, diplomatically.

I retired to another room, and got Sylvia upon the 'phone, "The time
has come for you to take the plunge," I said.

"Oh, but I don't want to be in the papers!" she cried "Surely, you
wouldn't advise it!"

"I don't see how you can avoid having something appear. Your name is
given out, and if the man can't get anything else, he'll take our
literature, and write up your doings out of his imagination."

"And they'll print my picture with it!" she exclaimed. I could not
help laughing. "It's quite possible."

"Oh, what will my husband do? He'll say 'I told you so!'"

It is a hard thing to have one's husband say that, as I knew by
bitter experience. But I did not think that reason enough for giving
up.

"Let me have time to think it over," said Sylvia. "Get him to wait
till to-morrow, and meantime I can see you."

So it was arranged. I think I told Sylvia the truth when I said that
I had never before heard of a committee member who was unwilling to
have his purposes discussed in the newspapers. To influence
newspapers was one of the main purposes of committees, and I did not
see how she could expect either editors or readers to take any other
view.

"Let me tell the man about your trip down town," I suggested, "then
I can go on to discuss the bill and how it bears on the evils you
saw. Such a statement can't possibly do you harm."

She consented, but with the understanding that she was not to be
quoted directly. "And don't let them make me picturesque!" she
exclaimed. "That's what my husband seems most to dread."

I wondered if he didn't think she was picturesque, when she sat in a
splendid, shining coach, and took part in a public parade through
Central Park. But I did not say this. I went off, and swore my
reporter to abstain from the "human touch," and he promised and kept
his word. There appeared next morning a dignified "write-up" of Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver's interest in child-labour reform. Quoting me, it
described some of the places she had visited, and some of the sights
which had shocked her; it went on to tell about our committee and
its work, the status of our bill in the legislature, the need of
activity on the part of our friends if the measure was to be forced
through at this session. It was a splendid "boost" for our work, and
everyone in the office was in raptures over it. The social
revolution was at hand! thought my young stenographer.

But the trouble with this business of publicity is that, however
carefully you control your interviewer, you cannot control the
others who use his material. The "afternoon men" came round for more
details, and they made it clear that it was personal details they
wanted. And when I side-stepped their questions, they went off and
made up answers to suit themselves, and printed Sylvia's pictures,
together with photographs of child-workers taken from our pamphlets.

I called Sylvia up while she was dressing for dinner, to explain
that I was not responsible for any of this picturesqueness. "Oh,
perhaps I am to blame myself!" she exclaimed. "I think I interviewed
a reporter."

"How do you mean?"

"A woman sent up her card--she told the footman she was a friend of
mine. And I thought--I couldn't be sure if I'd met her--so I went
and saw her. She said she'd met me at Mrs. Harold Cliveden's, and
she began to talk to me about child-labour, and this and that plan
she had, and what did I think of them, and suddenly it flashed over
me: 'Maybe this is a reporter playing a trick on me!'"

I hurried out before breakfast next morning and got all the papers,
to see what this enterprising lady had done. There was nothing, so I
reflected that probably she had been a "Sunday" lady.

But then, when I reached my office, the 'phone rang, and I heard the
voice of Sylvia: "Mary, something perfectly dreadful has happened!"

"What?" I cried.

"I can't tell you over the 'phone, but a certain person is furiously
angry. Can I see you if I come down right away?"

26. Such terrors as these were unguessed by me in the days of my
obscurity. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, uneasy also,
lies the wife of that head, and the best friend of the wife. I
dismissed my stenographer, and spent ten or fifteen restless minutes
until Sylvia appeared.

Her story was quickly told. A couple of hours ago the acting-manager
of Mr. van Tuiver's office had telephoned to ask if he might call
upon a matter of importance. He had come. Naturally, he had the most
extreme reluctance to say anything which might seem to criticise the
activities of Mr. van Tuiver's wife, but there was something in the
account in the newspapers which should be brought to her husband's
attention. The articles gave the names and locations of a number of
firms in whose factories it was alleged that Mrs. van Tuiver had
found unsatisfactory conditions, and it happened that two of these
firms were located in premises which belonged to the van Tuiver
estates!

A story coming very close to melodrama, I perceived. I sat dismayed
at what I had done. "Of course, dear girl," I said, at last, "you
understand that I had no idea who owned these buildings."

"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I am the one who should
have known!"

Then for a long time I sat still and let her suffer. "Tenement
sweat-shops! Little children in factories!" I heard her whisper.

At last I put my hand on hers. "I tried to put it off for a while,"
I said. "But I knew it would have to come."

"Think of me!" she exclaimed, "going about scolding other people for
the way they make their money! When I thought of my own, I had
visions of palatial hotels and office-buildings--everything splendid
and clean!"

"Well, my dear, you've learned now, and you will be able to do
something--"

She turned upon me suddenly, and for the first time I saw in her
face the passions of tragedy. "Do you believe I will be able to do
anything? No! Don't have any such idea!"

I was struck dumb. She got up and began to pace the room. "Oh, don't
make any mistake, I've paid for my great marriage in the last hour
or two. To think that he cares about nothing save the possibility of
being found out and made ridiculous! All his friends have been
'muckraked,' as he calls it, and he has sat aloft and smiled over
their plight; he was the landed gentleman, the true aristrocrat,
whom the worries of traders and money-changers didn't concern. Now
perhaps he's caught, and his name is to be dragged in the mire, and
it's my flightiness, my lack of commonsense that has done it!"

"I shouldn't let that trouble me," I said. "You could not know--"

"Oh, it's not that! It's that I hadn't a single courageous word to
say to him--not a hint that he ought to refuse to wring blood-money
from sweat-shops! I came away without having done it, because I
couldn't face his anger, because it would have meant a quarrel!"

"My dear," I said gently, "it is possible to survive a quarrel."

"No, you don't understand! We should never make it up again, I
know--I saw it in his words, in his face. He will never change to
please me, no, not even a simple thing like the business-methods of
the van Tuiver estates."

I could not help smiling. "My dear Sylvia! A simple thing!"

She came and sat beside me. "That's what I want to talk about. It is
time I was growing up. It it time that I knew about these things.
Tell me about them."

"What, my dear?"

"About the methods of the van Tuiver estates, that can't be changed
to please me. I made out one thing, we had recently paid a fine for
some infraction of the law in one of those buildings, and my husband
said it was because we had refused to pay more money to a
tenement-house inspector. I asked him: 'Why should we pay any money
at all to a tenement-house inspector? Isn't it bribery?' He
answered: 'It's a custom--the same as you give a tip to a hotel
waiter.' Is that true?"

I could not help smiling. "Your husband ought to know, my dear," I
said.

I saw her compress her lips. "What is the tip for?"

"I suppose it is to keep out of trouble with him."

"But why can't we keep out of trouble by obeying the law?"

"My dear, sometimes the law is inconvenient, and sometimes it is
complicated and obscure. It might be that you are violating it
without knowing the fact. It might be uncertain whether you are
violating it or not, so that to settle the question would mean a lot
of expense and publicity. It might even be that the law is
impossible to obey--that it was not intended to be obeyed."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, maybe it was passed to put you at the mercy of the
politicians."

"But," she protested, "that would be blackmail."

"The phrase," I replied, "is 'strike-legislation.'"

"But at least, that wouldn't be our fault!"

"No, not unless you had begun it. It generally happens that the
landlord discovers it's a good thing to have politicians who will
work with him. Maybe he wants his assessments lowered; maybe he
wants to know where new car lines are to go, so that he can buy
intelligently; maybe he wants the city to improve his neighbourhood;
maybe he wants influence at court when he has some heavy damage
suit."

"So we bribe everyone!"

"Not necessarily. You may simply wait until campaign-time, and then
make your contribution to the machine. That is the basis of the
'System.'."

"The 'System '?"

"A semi-criminal police-force, and everything that pays tribute to
it; the saloon and the dive, the gambling hell the white-slave
market, and the Arson trust."

I saw a wild look in her eyes. "Tell me, do you _know_ that all
these things are true? Or are you only guessing about them?"

"My dear Sylvia," I answered, "you said it was time you grew up. For
the present I will tell you this: Several months before I met you, I
made a speech in which I named some of the organised forces of evil
in the city. One was Tammany Hall, and another was the Traction
Trust, and another was the Trinity Church Corporation, and yet
another was the van Tuiver estates."

27. The following Sunday there appeared a "magazine story" of an
interview with the infinitely beautiful young wife of the infinitely
rich Mr. Douglas van Tuiver, in which the views of the wife on the
subject of child-labour were liberally interlarded with descriptions
of her reception-room and her morning-gown. But mere picturesqueness
by that time had been pretty well discounted in our minds. So long
as the article did not say anything about the ownership of
child-labour tenements!

I did not see Sylvia for several weeks after that. I took it for
granted that she would want some time to get herself together and
make up her mind about the future. I did not feel anxious; the seed
had sprouted, and I felt sure it would continue to grow.

Then one day she called me up, asking if I could come to see her. I
suggested that afternoon, and she said she was having tea with some
people at the Palace Hotel, and could I come there just after
tea-time? I remember the place and the hour, because of the curious
adventure into which I got myself. One hears the saying, when
unexpected encounters take place, "How small the world is!" But I
thought the world was growing really too small when I went into a
hotel tea-room to wait for Sylvia, and found myself face to face
with Claire Lepage!

The place appointed had been the "orange-room"; I stood in the
door-way, sweeping the place with my eyes, and I saw Mrs. van Tuiver
at the same moment that she saw me. She was sitting at a table with
several other people and she nodded, and I took a seat to wait. From
my position I could watch her, in animated conversation; and she
could send me a smile now and then. So I was decidedly startled when
I heard a voice, "Why, how do you do?" and looked up and saw Claire
holding out her hand to me.

"Well, for heaven's sake!" I exclaimed.

"You don't come to see me any more," she said.

"Why, no--no, I've been busy of late." So much I managed to
ejaculate, in spite of my confusion.

"You seem surprised to see me," she remarked--observant as usual,
and sensitive to other people's attitude to her.

"Why, naturally," I said. And then, recollecting that it was not in
the least natural--since she spent a good deal of her time in such
places--I added, "I was looking for someone else."

"May I do in the meantime?" she inquired, taking a seat beside me.
"What are you so busy about?"

"My child-labour work," I answered. Then, in an instant, I was sorry
for the words, thinking she must have read about Sylvia's
activities. I did not want her to know that I had met Sylvia, for it
would mean a flood of questions, which I did not want to answer--nor
yet to refuse to answer.

But my fear was needless. "I've been out of town," she said.

"Whereabouts?" I asked, making conversation.

"A little trip to Bermuda."

My mind was busy with the problem of getting rid of her. It would be
intolerable to have Sylvia come up to us; it was intolerable to know
that they were in sight of each other.

Even as the thought came to me, however, I saw Claire start. "Look!"
she exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"That woman there--in the green velvet! The fourth table."

"I see her."

"Do you know who she is?"

"Who?" (I remembered Lady Dee's maxim about lying!)

"Sylvia Castleman!" whispered Claire. (She always referred to her
thus--seeming to say, "I'm as much van Tuiver as she is!")

"Are you sure?" I asked--in order to say something.

"I've seen her a score of times. I seem to be always running into
her. That's Freddie Atkins she's talking to."

"Indeed!" said I.

"I know most of the men I see her with. But I have to walk by as if
I'd never seen them. A queer world we live in, isn't it?"

I could assent cordially to that proposition. "Listen," I broke in,
quickly. "Have you got anything to do? If not, come down to the
Royalty and have tea with me."

"Why not have it here?"

"I've been waiting for someone from there, and I have to leave a
message. Then I'll be free."

She rose, to my vast relief, and we walked out. I could feel
Sylvia's eyes following me; but I dared not try to send her a
message--I would have to make up some explanation afterwards. "Who
was your well-dressed friend?" I could imagine her asking; but my
mind was more concerned with the vision of what would happen if, in
full sight of her companion, Mr. Freddie Atkins, she were to rise
and walk over to Claire and myself!

28. Seated in the palm-room of the other hotel, I sipped a cup of
tea which I felt I had earned, while Claire had a little glass of
the fancy-coloured liquids which the ladies in these places affect.
The room was an aviary, with tropical plants and splashing
fountains--and birds of many gorgeous hues; I gazed from one to
another of the splendid creatures, wondering how many of them were
paying for their plumage in the same way as my present companion. It
would have taken a more practiced eye than mine to say which, for if
I had been asked, I would have taken Claire for a diplomat's wife.
She had not less than a thousand dollars' worth of raiment upon her,
and its style made clear to all the world the fact that it had not
been saved over from a previous season of prosperity. She was a fine
creature, who could carry any amount of sail; with her bold, black
eyes she looked thoroughly competent, and it was hard to believe in
the fundamental softness of her character.

I sat, looking about me, annoyed at having missed Sylvia, and only
half listening to Claire. But suddenly she brought me to attention.
"Well," she said, "I've met him."

"Met whom?"

"Douglas."

I stared at her. "Douglas van Tuiver?"

She nodded; and I suppressed a cry.

"I told you he'd come back," she added, with a laugh.

"You mean he came to see you?"

I could not hide my concern. But there was no need to, for it
flattered Claire's vanity. "No--not yet, but he will. I met him at
Jack Taylor's--at a supper-party."

"Did he know you were to be there?"

"No. But he didn't leave when he saw me."

There was a pause. I could not trust myself to say anything. But
Claire had no intention of leaving me curious. "I don't think he's
happy with her," she remarked.

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh, several things. I know him, you know. He wouldn't say he was."

"Perhaps he didn't want to discuss it with you."

"Oh, no--not that. He isn't reserved with me."

"I should think it was dangerous to discuss one's wife under such
circumstances," I laughed.

Claire laughed also. "You should have heard what Jack had to say
about his wife! She's down at Palm Beach."

"She'd better come home," I ventured.

"He was telling what a dance she leads him; she raises Cain if a
woman looks at him--and she damns every woman he meets before the
woman has a chance to look. Jack said marriage was hell--just hell.
Reggie Channing thought it was like a pair of old slippers that you
got used to." Jack laughed and answered, "You're at the stage where
you think you can solve the marriage problem by deceiving your
wife!"

I made no comment. Claire sat for a while, busy with her thoughts;
then she repeated, "He wouldn't say he was happy! And he misses me,
too. When he was going, I held his hand, and said: 'Well, Douglas,
how goes it?'"

"And then?" I asked; but she would not say any more.

I waited a while, and then began, "Claire, let him alone. Give them
a chance to be happy."

"Why should I?" she demanded, in a voice of hostility.

"She never harmed you," I said. I knew I was being foolish, but I
would do what I could.

"She took him away from me, didn't she?" And Claire's eyes were
suddenly alight with the hatred of her outcast class. "Why did she
get him? Why is she Mrs. van Tuiver, and I nobody? Because her
father was rich, because she had power and position, while I had to
scratch for myself in the world. Is that true, or isn't it?"

I could not deny that it might be part of the truth. "But they're
married now," I said, "and he loves her."

"He loves me, too. And I love him still, in spite of the way he's
treated me. He's the only man I ever really loved. Do you think I'm
going off and hide in a hole, while she spends his money and plays
the princess up and down the Avenue? Not much!"

I fell silent. Should I set out upon another effort at "moulding
water"? Should I give Claire one more scolding--tell her, perhaps,
how her very features were becoming hard and ugly, as a result of
the feelings she was harbouring? Should I recall the pretences of
generosity and dignity she had made when we first met? I might have
attempted this--but something held me back. After all, the one
person who could decide this issue was Douglas van Tuiver.

I rose. "Well, I have to be going. But I'll drop round now and then,
and see what success you have."

She became suddenly important. "Maybe I won't tell!"

To which I answered, indifferently, "All right, it's your secret."
But I went off without much worry over that part of it. Claire must
have some one to whom to recount her troubles--or her triumphs, as
the case might be.

29. I had my talk with Sylvia a day or two later, and made my
excuse--a friend from the West who had been going out of town in a
few hours later.

The seed had been growing, I found. Ever since we had last met, her
life had consisted of arguments over the costume-ball on which her
husband had set his heart, and at which she had refused to play the
hostess.

"Of course, he's right about one thing," she remarked. "We can't
stay in New York unless we give some big affair. Everyone expects
it, and there is no explanation except one he could not offer."

"I've made a big breach in your life, Sylvia," I said.

"It wasn't all you. This unhappiness has been in me--it's been like
a boil, and you've been the poultice." (She had four younger
brothers and sisters, so these domestic similes came naturally.)

"Boils," I remarked, "are disfiguring, when they come to a head."

There was a pause. "How is your child-labour bill?" she asked,
abruptly.

"Why, it's all right."

"Didn't I see a letter in the paper saying it had been referred to a
sub-committee, some trick to suppress it for this session?"

I could not answer. I had been hoping she had not seen that letter.

"If I were to come forward now," she said, "I could possibly block
that move, couldn't I?"

Still I said nothing.

"If I were to take a bold stand--I mean if I were to speak at a
public meeting, and denounce the move."

"I suppose you could," I had to admit.

For a long time she sat with her head bowed. "The children will have
to wait," she said, at last, half to herself.

"My dear," I answered (What else was there to answer?) "the children
have waited a long time."

"I hate to turn back--to have you say I'm a coward--"

"I won't say that, Sylvia."

"You will be too kind, no doubt, but that will be the truth."

I tried to reassure her. But the acids I had used--intended for
tougher skins than hers--had burned into the very bone, and now it
was not possible to stop their action. "I must make you understand,"
she said, "how serious a thing it seems to me for a wife to stand
out against her husband. I've been brought up to feel that it was
the most terrible thing a woman could do."

She stopped, and when she went on again her face was set like one
enduring pain. "So this is the decision to which I have come. If I
do anything of a public nature now, I drive my husband from me; on
the other hand, if I take a little time, I may be able to save the
situation. I need to educate myself, and I'm hoping I may be able to
educate him at the same time. If I can get him to read something--if
it's only a few paragraphs everyday--I may gradually change his
point of view, so that he will tolerate what I believe. At any rate,
I ought to try; I am sure that is the wise and kind and fair thing
to do."

"What will you do about the ball?" I asked.

"I am going to take him away, out of this rush and distraction, this
dressing and undressing, hurrying about meeting people and
chattering about nothing."

"He is willing?"

"Yes; in fact, he suggested it himself. He thinks my mind is turned,
with all the things I've been reading, and with Mrs. Frothingham,
and Mrs. Allison, and the rest. He hopes that if I go away, I may
quiet down and come to my senses. We have a good excuse. I have to
think of my health just now---"

She stopped, and looked away from my eyes. I saw the colour
spreading in a slow wave over her cheeks; it was like those tints of
early dawn that are so ravishing to the souls of poets. "In four or
five months from now---" And she stopped again.

I put my big hand gently over her small one. "I have three children
of my own," I said.

"So," she went on, "it won't seem so unreasonable. Some people know,
and the rest will guess, and there won't be any talk--I mean, such
as there would be if it was rumoured that Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver
had got interested in Socialism, and refused to spend her husband's
money."

"I understand," I replied. "It's quite the most sensible thing, and
I'm glad you've found a way out. I shall miss you, of course, but we
can write each other long letters. Where are you going?"

"I'm not absolutely sure. Douglas suggests a cruise in the West
Indies, but I think I should rather be settled in one place. He has
a lovely house in the mountains of North Carolina, and wants me to
go there; but it's a show-place, with rich homes all round, and I
know I'd soon be in a social whirl. I thought of the camp in the
Adirondacks. It would be glorious to see the real woods in winter;
but I lose my nerve when I think of the cold--I was brought up in a
warm place."

"A 'camp' sounds rather primitive for one in your condition," I
suggested.

"That's because you haven't been there. In reality it's a big house,
with twenty-five rooms, and steam-heat and electric lights, and half
a dozen men to take care of it when it's empty--as it has been for
several years."

I smiled--for I could read her thought. "Are you going to be unhappy
because you can't occupy all your husband's homes?"

"There's one other I prefer," she continued, unwilling to be made to
smile. "They call it a 'fishing lodge,' and it's down in the Florida
Keys. They're putting a railroad through there, but meantime you can
only get to it by a launch. From the pictures, it's the most
heavenly spot imaginable. Fancy running about those wonderful green
waters in a motor-boat!"

"It sounds quite alluring," I replied. "But isn't it remote for
you?"

"We're not so very far from Key West; and my husband means to have a
physician with us in any case. The advantage of being in a small
place is that we couldn't entertain if we wanted to. I can have my
Aunt Varina come to stay with me, a dear, sweet soul who loves me
devotedly; and then if I find I have to have some new ideas, perhaps
you can come---"

"I don't think your husband would favour that," I said.

She put her hand out to me in a quick gesture. "I don't mean to give
up our friendship! I want you to understand, I intend to go on
studying and growing. I am doing what he asked me--it's right that I
should think of his wishes, and of the health of my child. But the
child will be growing up, and sooner or later my husband must grant
me the right to think, to have a life of my own. You must stand by
me and help me, whatever happens."

I gave her my hand on that, and so we parted--for some time, as it
proved. I went up to Albany once more, in a last futile effort to
save our precious bill; and while I was there I got a note from her,
saying that she was leaving for the Florida Keys.


BOOK II

SYLVIA AS MOTHER


For three months after this I had nothing but letters from Sylvia.
She proved to be an excellent letter-writer, full of verve and
colour. I would not say that she poured out her soul to me, but she
gave me glimpses of her states of mind, and the progress of her
domestic drama.

First, she described the place to which she had come; a ravishing
spot, where any woman ought to be happy. It was a little island,
fringed with a border of cocoanut-palms, which rustled and
whispered day and night in the breeze. It was covered with tropical
foliage, and there was a long, rambling bungalow, with screened
"galleries," and a beach of hard white sand in front. The water was
blue, dazzling with sunshine, and dotted with distant green islands;
all of it, air, water, and islands, were warm. "I don't realize till
I get here," she said, "I am never really happy in the North. I wrap
myself against the assaults of a cruel enemy. But here I am at home;
I cast off my furs, I stretch out my arms, I bloom. I believe I
shall quite cease to think for a while--I shall forget all storms
and troubles, and bask on the sand like a lizard.

"And the water! Mary, you cannot imagine such water; why should it
be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a
little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for
hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and
all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have
caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it
really is quite thrilling to feel the monstrous creature struggling
with you--though, of course, my arms soon gave out, and I had to
turn him over to my husband. This is one of the famous
fishing-grounds of the world, and I am glad of that, because it will
keep the men happy while I enjoy the sunshine.

"I have discovered a fascinating diversion," she wrote, in a second
letter. "I make them take me in the launch to one of the loneliest
of the keys; they go off to fish, and I have the whole day to
myself, and am as happy as a child on a picnic! I roam the beach, I
take off my shoes and stockings--there are no newspaper reporters
snapping pictures. I dare not go far in, for there are huge black
creatures with dangerous stinging tails; they rush away in a cloud
of sand when I approach, but the thought of stepping upon one by
accident is terrifying. However, I let the little wavelets wash
round my toes, and I try to grab little fish, and I pick up lovely
shells; and then I go on, and I see a huge turtle waddling to the
water, and I dash up, and would stop him if I dared, and then I find
his eggs--such an adventure!

"I am the prey of strange appetites and cravings. I have a delicious
luncheon with me, but suddenly the one thing in the world I want to
eat is turtle-eggs. I have no matches with me, and I do not know how
to build a fire like the Indians, so I have to hide the eggs back in
the sand until to-morrow. I hope the turtle does not move them--and
that I have not lost my craving in the meantime!

"Then I go exploring inland. These islands were once the haunts of
pirates, so I may imagine all sorts of romantic things. What I find
are lemon-trees. I do not know if they are wild, or if the key was
once cultivated; the lemons are huge in size, and nearly all skin,
but the flavour is delicious. Turtle-eggs with wild lemon-juice! And
then I go on and come to a mangrove-swamp--dark and forbidding, a
grisly place; you imagine the trees are in torment, with limbs and
roots tangled like writhing serpents. I tiptoe in a little way, and
then get frightened, and run back to the beach.

"I see on the sand a mysterious little yellow creature, running like
the wind; I make a dash, and get between him and his hole; and so he
stands, crouching on guard, staring at me, and I at him. He is some
sort of crab, but he stands on two legs like a caricature of a man;
he has two big weapons upraised for battle, and staring black eyes
stuck out on long tubes. He is an uncanny thing to look at; but then
suddenly the idea comes, How do I seem to him? I realize that he is
alive; a tiny mite of hunger for life, of fear and resolution. I
think, How lonely he must be! And I want to tell him that I love
him, and would not hurt him for the world; but I have no way to make
him understand me, and all I can do is to go away and leave him. I
go, thinking what a strange place the world is, with so many living
things, each shut away apart by himself, unable to understand the
others or make the others understand him. This is what is called
philosophy, is it not? Tell me some books where these things are
explained....

"I am reading all you sent me. When I grew tired of exploring the
key, I lay down in the shade of a palm-tree, and read--guess what?
'Number Five John Street'! So all this loveliness vanished, and I
was back in the world's nightmare. An extraordinary book! I decided
that it would be good for my husband, so I read him a few
paragraphs; but I found that it only irritated him. He wants me to
rest, he says--he can't see why I've come away to the Florida Keys
to read about the slums of London.

"My hope of gradually influencing his mind has led to a rather
appalling discovery--that he has the same intention as regards me!
He too has brought a selection of books, and reads to me a few pages
every day, and explains what they mean. He calls _this_ resting! I
am no match for him, of course--I never realized more keenly the
worthlessness of my education. But I see in a general way where his
arguments tend--that life is something that has grown, and is not in
the power of men to change; but even if he could convince me of
this, I should not find it a source of joy. I have a feeling always
that if you were here, you would know something to answer.

"The truth is that I am so pained by the conflict between us that I
cannot argue at all. I find myself wondering what our marriage would
have been like if we had discovered that we had the same ideas and
interests. There are days and nights at a time when I tell myself
that I ought to believe what my husband believes, that I ought never
have allowed myself to think of anything else. But that really won't
do as a life-programme; I tried it years ago with my dear mother and
father. Did I ever tell you that my mother is firmly convinced in
her heart that I am to suffer eternally in a real hell of fire
because I do not believe certain things about the Bible? She still
has visions of it--though not so bad since she turned me over to a
husband!

"Now it is my husband who is worried about my ideas. He is reading a
book by Burke, a well-known old writer. The book deals with English
history, which I don't know much about, but I see that it resents
modern changes, and the whole spirit of change. And Mary, why can't
I feel that way? I really ought to love those old and stately
things, I ought to be reverent to the past; I was brought up that
way. Sometimes I tremble when I realize how very flippant and
cynical I am. I seem to see the wrong side of everything, so that I
couldn't believe in it if I wanted to!"

2. Her letters were full of the wonders of Nature about her. There
was a snow-white egret who made his home upon her island; she
watched his fishing operations, and meant to find his nest, so as to
watch his young. The men made a trip into the Everglades, and
brought back wonder-tales of flocks of flamingoes making scarlet
clouds in the sky, huge colonies of birds' nests crowded like a
city. They had brought home a young one, which screamed all day to
be stuffed with fish.

A cousin of Sylvia's, Harley Chilton, had come to visit her. He had
taken van Tuiver on hunting-trips during the latter's courtship
days, and now was a good fishing-companion. He was not allowed to
discover the state of affairs between Sylvia and her husband, but he
saw his cousin reading serious books, and his contribution to the
problem was to tell her that she would get wrinkles in her face, and
that even her feet would grow big, like those of the ladies in New
England.

Also, there was the young physician who kept watch over Sylvia's
health; a dapper little man with pink and white complexion, and a
brown moustache from which he could not keep his fingers. He had a
bungalow to himself, but sometimes he went along on the
launch-trips, and Sylvia thought she observed wrinkles of amusement
round his eyes whenever she differed from her husband on the subject
of Burke. She suspected this young man of not telling all his ideas
to his multi-millionaire patients, and she was entertained by the
prospect of probing him.

Then came Mrs. Varina Tuis; who since the tragic cutting of her own
domestic knot, had given her life to the service of the happier
members of the Castleman line. She was now to be companion and
counsellor to Sylvia; and on the very day of her arrival she
discovered the chasm that was yawning in her niece's life.

"It's wonderful," wrote Sylvia, "the intuition of the Castleman
women. We were in the launch, passing one of the viaducts of the new
railroad, and Aunt Varina exclaimed, 'What a wonderful piece of
work!' 'Yes,' put in my husband, 'but don't let Sylvia hear you say
it.' 'Why not?' she asked; and he replied, 'She'll tell you how many
hours a day the poor Dagoes have to work.' That was all; but I saw
Aunt Varina give a quick glance at me, and I saw that she was not
fooled by my efforts to make conversation. It was rather horrid of
Douglas, for he knows that I love these old people, and do not want
them to know about my trouble. But it is characteristic of him--when
he is annoyed he seldom tries to spare others.

"As soon as we were alone, Aunt Varina began, 'Sylvia, my dear, what
does it mean? What have you done to worry your husband?'

"You would be entertained if I could remember the conversation. I
tried to dodge the trouble by answering off-hand, 'Douglas had eaten
too many turtle-eggs for luncheon '--this being a man-like thing,
that any dear old lady would understand. But she was too shrewd. I
had to explain to her that I was learning to think, and this sent
her into a perfect panic.

"'You actually mean, my child, that you are thinking about subjects
to which your husband objects, and you refuse to stop when he asks
you to? Surely you must know that he has some good reason for
objecting.'

"'I suppose so,' I said, 'but he has not made that reason clear to
me; and certainly I have a right--'

"She would not hear any more than that. 'Right, Sylvia? Right? Are
you claiming the right to drive your husband from you?'

"'But surely I can't regulate all my thinking by the fear of driving
my husband from me!'

"'Sylvia, you take my breath away. Where did you get such ideas?'

"'But answer me, Aunt Varina--can I?'

"'What thinking is as important to a woman as thinking how to please
a good, kind husband? What would become of her family if she no
longer tried to do this?'

"So you see, we opened up a large subject. I know you consider me a
backward person, and you may be interested to learn that there are
some to whom I seem a terrifying rebel. Picture poor Aunt Varina,
her old face full of concern, repeating over and over, 'My child, my
child, I hope I have come in time! Don't scorn the advice of a woman
who has paid bitterly for her mistakes. You have a good husband, a
man who loves you devotedly; you are one of the most fortunate of
women--now do not throw your happiness away!'

"'Aunt Varina,' I said (I forget if I ever told you that her husband
gambled and drank, and finally committed suicide) 'Aunt Varina, do
you really believe that every man is so anxious to get away from his
wife that it must take her whole stock of energy, her skill in
diplomacy, to keep him?'

"'Sylvia,' she answered, "you put things so strangely, you use such
horribly crude language, I don't know how to talk to you!' (That
must be your fault, Mary. I never heard such a charge before.) 'I
can only tell you this--that the wife who permits herself to think
about other things than her duty to her husband and her children is
taking a frightful risk. She is playing with fire, Sylvia--she will
realize too late what it means to set aside the wisdom of her sex,
the experience of other women for ages and ages!'

"So there you are, Mary! I am studying another unwritten book, the
Maxims of Aunt Varina!

"She has found the remedy for my troubles, the cure for my disease
of thought--I am to sew! I tell her that I have more clothes than I
can wear in a dozen seasons, and she answers, in an awesome voice,
'There is the little stranger!' When I point out that the little
stranger will be expected to have a 'layette' costing many thousands
of dollars, she replies, 'They will surely permit him to wear some
of the things his mother's hands have made.' So, behold me, seated
on the gallery, learning fancy stitches--and with Kautsky on the
Social Revolution hidden away in the bottom of my sewing-bag!"

3. The weeks passed. The legislature at Albany adjourned, without
regard to our wishes; and so, like the patient spider whose web is
destroyed, we set to work upon a new one. So much money must be
raised, so many articles must be written, so many speeches
delivered, so many people seized upon and harried and wrought to a
state of mind where they were dangerous to the future career of
legislators. Such is the process of social reform under the private
property r�gime; a process which the pure and simple reformers
imagine we shall tolerate for ever--God save us!

Sylvia asked me for the news, and I told it to her--how we had
failed, and what we had to do next. So pretty soon there came by
registered mail a little box, in which I found a diamond ring. "I
cannot ask him for money just now," she explained, "but here is
something that has been mine from girlhood. It cost about four
hundred dollars--this for your guidance in selling it. Not a day
passes that I do not see many times that much wasted; so take it for
the cause." Queen Isabella and her jewels!

In this letter she told me of a talk she had had with her husband on
the "woman-problem." She had thought at first that it was going to
prove a helpful talk--he had been in a fairer mood than she was
usually able to induce. "He evaded some of my questions," she
explained, "but I don't think it was deliberate; it is simply the
evasive attitude of mind which the whole world takes. He says he
does not think that women are inferior to men, only that they are
different; the mistake is for them to try to become _like_ men. It
is the old proposition of 'charm,' you see. I put that to him, and
he admitted that he did like to be 'charmed.'

"I said, 'You wouldn't, if you knew as much about the process as I
do.'

"'Why not?' he asked.

"'Because, it's not an honest process. It's not a straight way for
one sex to deal with the other.'

"He asked what I meant by that; but then, remembering the cautions
of my great-aunt, I laughed. 'If you are going to compel me to use
the process, you can hardly expect me to tell you the secret of it.'

"'Then there's no use trying to talk,' he said.

"'Ah, but there is!' I exclaimed. 'You admit that I have
'charm'--dozens of other men admitted it. And so it ought to count
for something if I declare that I know it's not an honest
thing--that it depends upon trickery, and appeals to the worst
qualities in a man. For instance, his vanity. "Flatter him," Lady
Dee used to say. "He'll swallow it." And he will--I never knew a man
to refuse a compliment in my life. His love of domination. "If you
want anything, make him think that _he_ wants it!" His egotism. She
had a bitter saying--I can hear the very tones of her voice: "When
in doubt, talk about HIM." That is what is called "charm"!'

"'I don't seem to feel it,' he said.

"' No, because now you are behind the scenes. But when you were in
front, you felt it, you can't deny. And you would feel it again, any
time I chose to use it. But I want to know if there is not some
honest way a woman can interest a man. The question really comes to
this--Can a man love a woman for what she really is?'

"'I should say,' he said, 'that it depends upon the woman.'

"I admitted this was a plausible answer. 'But you loved me, when I
made myself a mystery to you. But now that I am honest with you, you
have made it clear that you don't like it, that you won't have it.
And that is the problem that women have to face. It is a fact that
the women of our family have always ruled the men; but they've done
it by indirection--nobody ever thought seriously of "women's rights"
in Castleman County. But you see, women _have_ rights; and somehow
or other they will fool the men, or else the men must give up the
idea that they are the superior sex, and have the right, or the
ability, to rule women.'

"Then I saw how little he had followed me. 'There has to be a head
to the family,' he said.

"I answered, 'There have been cases in history of a king and queen
ruling together, and getting along very well. Why not the same thing
in a family?'

"'That's all right, so far as the things of the family are
concerned. But such affairs as business and politics are in the
sphere of men; and women cannot meddle in them without losing their
best qualities as women.'

"And so there we were. I won't repeat his arguments, for doubtless
you have read enough anti-suffrage literature. The thing I noticed
was that if I was very tactful and patient, I could apparently carry
him along with me; but when the matter came up again, I would
discover that he was back where he had been before. A woman must
accept the guidance of a man; she must take the man's word for the
things that he understands. 'But suppose the man is _wrong?_' I
said; and there we stopped--there we shall stop always, I begin to
fear. I agree with him that woman should obey man--so long as man is
right!"

4. Her letters did not all deal with this problem. In spite of the
sewing, she found time to read a number of books, and we argued
about these. Then, too, she had been probing her young doctor, and
had made interesting discoveries about him. For one thing, he was
full of awe and admiration for her; and her awakening mind found
material for speculation in this.

"Here is this young man; he thinks he is a scientist, he rather
prides himself upon being cold-blooded; yet a cunning woman could
twist him round her finger. He had an unhappy love-affair when he
was young, so he confided to me; and now, in his need and
loneliness, a beautiful woman is transformed into something
supernatural in his imagination--she is like a shimmering
soap-bubble, that he blows with his own breath. I know that I could
never get him to see the real truth about me; I might tell him that
I have let myself be tied up in a golden net--but he would only
marvel at my spirituality. Oh, the women I have seen trading upon
the credulity of men! And when I think how I did this myself! If men
were wise, they would give us the vote, and a share in the world's
work--anything that would bring us out into the light of day, and
break the spell of mystery that hangs round us!

"By the way," she wrote in another letter, "there will be trouble if
you come down here. I was telling Dr. Perrin about you, and your
ideas about fasting, and mental healing, and the rest of your fads.
He got very much excited. It seems that he takes his diploma
seriously, and he's not willing to be taught by amateur experiments.
He wanted me to take some pills, and I refused, and I think now he
blames you for it. He has found a bond of sympathy with my husband,
who proves his respect for authority by taking whatever he is told
to take. Dr. Perrin got his medical training here in the South, and
I imagine he's ten or twenty years behind the rest of the medical
world. Douglas picked him out because he'd met him socially. It
makes no difference to me--because I don't mean to have any
doctoring done to me!"

Then, on top of these things, would come a cry from her soul. "Mary,
what will you do if some day you get a letter from me confessing
that I am not happy? I dare not say a word to my own people. I am
supposed to be at the apex of human triumph, and I have to play that
role to keep from hurting them. I know that if my dear old father
got an inkling of the truth, it would kill him. My one real solid
consolation is that I have helped him, that I have lifted a
money-burden from his life; I have done that, I tell myself, over
and over; but then I wonder, have I done anything but put the
reckoning off? I have given all his other children a new excuse for
extravagance, an impulse towards worldliness which they did not
need.

"There is my sister Celeste, for example. I don't think I have told
you about her. She made her _d�but_ last fall, and was coming up to
New York to stay with me this winter. She had it all arranged in her
mind to make a rich marriage; I was to give her the _entr�e_--and
now I have been selfish, and thought of my own desires, and gone
away. Can I say to her, Be warned by me, I have made a great match,
and it has not brought me happiness? She would not understand, she
would say I was foolish. She would say, 'If I had your luck, _I_
would be happy.' And the worst of it is, it would be true.

"You see the position I am in with the rest of the children. I
cannot say, 'You are spending too much of papa's money, it is wrong
for you to sign cheques and trust to his carelessness.' I have had
my share of the money, I have lined my own nest. All I can do is to
buy dresses and hats for Celeste; and know that she will use these
to fill her girl-friends with envy, and make scores of other
families live beyond their means."

5. Sylvia's pregnancy was moving to its appointed end. She wrote me
beautifully about it, much more frankly and simply than she could
have brought herself to talk. She recalled to me my own raptures,
and also, my own heartbreak. "Mary! Mary! I felt the child to-day!
Such a sensation, I could not have credited it if anyone had told
me. I almost fainted. There is something in me that wants to turn
back, that is afraid to go on with such experiences. I do not wish
to be seized in spite of myself, and made to feel things beyond my
control. I wander off down the beach, and hide myself, and cry and
cry. I think I could almost pray again."

And then again, "I am in ecstasy, because I am to bear a child, a
child of my own! Oh, wonderful, wonderful! But suddenly my ecstasy
is shot through with terror, because the father of this child is a
man I do not love. There is no use trying to deceive myself--nor
you! I must have one human soul with whom I can talk about it as it
really is. I do not love him, I never did love him, I never shall
love him!

"Oh, how could they have all been so mistaken? Here is Aunt
Varina--one of those who helped to persuade me into this marriage.
She told me that love would come; it seemed to be her idea--my
mother had it too--that you had only to submit yourself to a man, to
follow and obey him, and love would take possession of your heart. I
tried credulously, and it did not happen as they promised. And now,
I am to bear him a child; and that will bind us together for ever!

"Oh, the despair of it--I do not love the father of my child! I say,
The child will be partly his, perhaps more his than mine. It will be
like him--it will have this quality and that, the very qualities,
perhaps, that are a source of distress to me in the father. So I
shall have these things before me day and night, all the rest of my
life; I shall have to see them growing and hardening; it will be a
perpetual crucifixion of my mother-love. I seek to comfort myself by
saying, The child can be trained differently, so that he will not
have these qualities. But then I think, No, you cannot train him as
you wish. Your husband will have rights to the child, rights
superior to your own. Then I foresee the most dreadful strife
between us.

"A shrewd girl-friend once told me that I ought to be better or
worse; I ought not to see people's faults as I do, or else I ought
to love people less. And I can see that I ought to have been too
good to make this marriage, or else not too good to make the best of
it. I know that I might be happy as Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver, if I
could think of the worldly advantages, and the fact that my child
will inherit them. But instead, I see them as a trap, in which not
only ourselves but the child is caught, and from which I cannot save
us. Oh, what a mistake a woman makes when she marries a man with the
idea that she is going to change him! He will not change, he will
not have the need of change suggested to him. He wants _peace_ in
his home--which means that he wants to be what he is.

"Sometimes I can study the situation quite coolly, and as if it
didn't concern me at all. He has required me to subject my mind to
his. But he will not be content with a general capitulation; he must
have a surrender from each individual soldier, from every rebel
hidden in the hills. He tracks them out (my poor, straggling, feeble
ideas) and either they take the oath of allegiance, or they are
buried where they lie. The process is like the spoiling of a child,
I find; the more you give him, the more he wants. And if any little
thing is refused, then you see him set out upon a regular campaign
to break you down and get it."

A month or more later she wrote: "Poor Douglas is getting restless.
He has caught every kind of fish there is to catch, and hunted every
kind of animal and bird, in and out of season. Harley has gone home,
and so have our other guests; it would be embarrassing to me to have
company now. So Douglas has no one but the doctor and myself and my
poor aunt. He has spoken several times of our going away; but I do
not want to go, and I think I ought to consider my own health at
this critical time. It is hot here, but I simply thrive in it--I
never felt in better health. So I asked him to go up to New York, or
visit somewhere for a while, and let me stay here until my baby is
born. Does that seem so very unreasonable? It does not to me, but
poor Aunt Varina is in agony about it--I am letting my husband drift
away from me!

"I speculate about my lot as a woman; I see the bitterness and the
sorrow of my sex through the ages. I have become physically
misshapen, so that I am no longer attractive to him. I am no longer
active and free, I can no longer go about with him; on the contrary,
I am a burden, and he is a man who never tolerated a burden before.
What this means is that I have lost the magic hold of sex.

"As a woman it was my business to exert all my energies to maintain
it. And I know how I could restore it now; there is young Dr.
Perrin! _He_ does not find me a burden, _he_ would tolerate any
deficiencies! And I can see my husband on the alert in an instant,
if I become too much absorbed in discussing your health-theories
with my handsome young guardian!

"This is one of the recognized methods of keeping your husband; I
learned from Lady Dee all there is to know about it. But I would
find the method impossible now, even if my happiness were dependent
upon retaining my husband's love. I should think of the rights of my
friend, the little doctor. That is one point to note for the 'new'
woman, is it not? You may mention it in your next suffrage-speech!

"There are other methods, of course. I have a mind, and I might turn
its powers to entertaining him, instead of trying to solve the
problems of the universe. But to do this, I should have to believe
that it was the one thing in the world for me to do; and I have
permitted a doubt of that to gain entrance to my brain! My poor
aunt's exhortations inspire me to efforts to regain the faith of my
mothers, but I simply cannot--I cannot! She sits by me with the
terror of all the women of all the ages in her eyes. I am losing a
man!

"I don't know if you have ever set out to hold a man--deliberately,
I mean. Probably you haven't. That bitter maxim of Lady Dee's is the
literal truth of it--'When in doubt, talk about HIM!' If you will
tactfully and shrewdly keep a man talking about himself, his tastes,
his ideas, his work and the importance of it, there is never the
least possibility of your boring him. You must not just tamely agree
with him, of course; if you hint a difference now and then, and make
him convince you, he will find that stimulating; or if you can
manage not to be quite convinced, but sweetly open to conviction, he
will surely call again. 'Keep him busy every minute,' Lady Dee used
to say. 'Run away with him now and then--like a spirited horse!' And
she would add, 'But don't let him drop the reins!'

"You can have no idea how many women there are in the world
deliberately playing such parts. Some of them admit it; others just
do the thing that is easiest, and would die of horror if they were
told what it is. It is the whole of the life of a successful society
woman, young or old. Pleasing a man! Waiting upon his moods, piquing
him, flattering him, feeding his vanity--'charming' him! That is
what Aunt Varina wants me to do now; if I am not too crude in my
description of the process, she has no hesitation in admitting the
truth. It is what she tried to do, it is what almost every woman has
done who has held a family together and made a home. I was reading
_Jane Eyre_ the other day. _There_ is your woman's ideal of an
imperious and impetuous lover! Listen to him, when his mood is on
him!--

"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night; and that
is why I sent for you; the fire and the chandelier were not
sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of
these can talk. To-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss
what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to
draw you out--to learn more of you--therefore speak!"

6. It was now May, and Sylvia's time was little more than a month
off. She had been urging me to come and visit her, but I had
refused, knowing that my presence must necessarily be disturbing to
both her husband and her aunt. But now she wrote that her husband
was going back to New York. "He was staying out of a sense of duty
to me," she said. "But his discontent was so apparent that I had to
point out to him that he was doing harm to me as well as to himself.

"I doubt if you will want to come here now. The last of the winter
visitors have left. It is really hot, so hot that you cannot get
cool by going into the water. Yet I am revelling in it; I wear
almost nothing, and that white; and even the suspicious Dr. Perrin
cannot but admit that I am thriving; his references to pills are
purely formal.

"Lately I have not permitted myself to think much about the
situation between my husband and myself. I cannot blame him, and I
cannot blame myself, and I am trying to keep my peace of mind till
my baby is born. I have found myself following half-instinctively
the procedure you told me about; I talk to my own subconscious mind,
and to the baby--I command them to be well. I whisper to them things
that are not so very far from praying; but I don't think my poor
dear mamma would recognize it in its new scientific dress!

"But sometimes I can't help thinking of the child and its future,
and then all of a sudden my heart is ready to break with pity for
the child's father! I have the consciousness that I do not love him,
and that he has always known it--and that makes me remorseful. But I
told him the truth before we married--he promised to be patient with
me till I had learned to love him! Now I want to burst into tears
and cry aloud, 'Oh, why did you do it? Why did I let myself be
persuaded into this marriage?'

"I tried to have a talk with him last night, after he had decided to
go away. I was full of pity, and a desire to help. I said I wanted
him to know that no matter how much we might disagree about some
things, I meant to learn to live happily with him. We must find some
sort of compromise, for the sake of the child, if not for ourselves;
we must not let the child suffer. He answered coldly that there
would be no need for the child to suffer, the child would have the
best the world could afford. I suggested that there might arise some
question as to just what the best was; but to that he said nothing.
He went on to rebuke my discontent; had he not given me everything a
woman could want? he asked. He was too polite to mention money; but
he said that I had leisure and entire freedom from care. I was
persisting in assuming cares, while he was doing all in his power to
prevent it.

"And that was as far as we got. I gave up the discussion, for we
should only have gone the old round over again.

"Douglas has taken up a saying that my cousin brought with him:
'What you don't know won't hurt you!' I think that before he left,
Harley had begun to suspect that all was not well between my husband
and myself, and he felt it necessary to give me a little friendly
counsel. He was tactful, and politely vague, but I understood
him--my worldly-wise young cousin. I think that saying of his sums
up the philosophy that he would teach to all women--'What you don't
know won't hurt you!'"

7. A week or so later Sylvia wrote me that her husband was in New
York. And I waited another week, for good measure, and then one
morning dropped in for a call upon Claire Lepage.

Why did I do it? you ask. I had no definite purpose--only a general
opposition to the philosophy of Cousin Harley.

I was ushered into Claire's boudoir, which was still littered with
last evening's apparel. She sat in a dressing-gown with resplendent
red roses on it, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, and
apologized for not being ready for callers.

"I've just had a talking to from Larry," she explained.

"Larry?" said I, inquiringly; for Claire had always informed me
elaborately that van Tuiver had been her one departure from
propriety, and always would be.

Apparently she had now reached a stage in her career where pretences
were too much trouble. "I've come to the conclusion that I don't
know how to manage men," she said. "I never can get along with one
for any time."

I remarked that I had had the same experience; though of course I
had only tried it once. "Tell me," I said, "who's Larry?"

"There's his picture." She reached into a drawer of her dresser.

I saw a handsome blonde gentleman, who looked old enough to know
better. "He doesn't seem especially forbidding," I said.

"That's just the trouble--you can never tell about men!"

I noted a date on the picture. "He seems to be an old friend. You
never told me about him."

"He doesn't like being told about. He has a troublesome wife."

I winced inwardly, but all I said was, "I see."

"He's a stock-broker; and he got 'squeezed,' so he says, and it's
made him cross--and careful with his money, too. That's trying, in a
stock-broker, you must admit." She laughed. "And still he's just as
particular--wants to have his own way in everything, wants to say
whom I shall know and where I shall go. I said, 'I have all the
inconveniences of matrimony, and none of the advantages.'"

I made some remark upon the subject of the emancipation of woman;
and Claire, who was now leaning back in her chair, combing out her
long black tresses, smiled at me out of half-closed eyelids. "Guess
whom he's objecting to!" she said. And when I pronounced it
impossible, she looked portentous. "There are bigger fish in the sea
than Larry Edgewater!"

"And you've hooked one?" I asked, innocently.

"Well, I don't mean to give up all my friends."

I went on casually to talk about my plans for the summer; and a few
minutes later, after a lull--"By the way," remarked Claire, "Douglas
van Tuiver is in town."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen him."

"Indeed! Where?"

"I got Jack Taylor to invite me again. You see, when Douglas fell in
love with his peerless southern beauty, Jack predicted he'd get over
it even more quickly. Now he's interested in proving he was right."

I waited a moment, and then asked, carelessly, "Is he having any
success?"

"I said, 'Douglas, why don't you come to see me?' He was in a
playful mood. 'What do you want? A new automobile?' I answered, 'I
haven't any automobile, new or old, and you know it. What I want is
you. I always loved you--surely I proved that to you.' 'What you
proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat. I'm afraid of
you. And anyway, I'm tired of women. I'll never trust another one.'"

"About the same conclusion as you've come to regarding men," I
remarked.

"'Douglas,' I said, 'come and see me, and we'll talk over old times.
You may trust me, I swear I'll not tell a living soul.' 'You've been
consoling yourself with someone else,' he said. But I knew he was
only guessing. He was seeking for something that would worry me, and
he said, 'You're drinking too much. People that drink can't be
trusted.' 'You know,' I replied, 'I didn't drink too much when I was
with you. I'm not drinking as much as you are, right now.' He
answered, 'I've been off on a desert island for God knows how many
months, and I'm celebrating my escape.' 'Well,' I answered, 'let me
help celebrate!'"

"What did he say to that?"

Claire resumed the combing of her silken hair, and smiled a slow
smile at me. "'You may trust me, Douglas,' I said. 'I swear I'll not
tell a living soul!'"

"Of course," I remarked, appreciatively, "that means he said he'd
come!"

"_I_ haven't told you!" was the reply.

8. I knew that I had only to wait for Claire to tell me the rest of
the story. But her mind went off on another tack. "Sylvia's going to
have a baby," she remarked, suddenly.

"That ought to please her husband," I said.

"You can see him beginning to swell with paternal pride!--so Jack
said. He sent for a bottle of some famous kind of champagne that he
has, to celebrate the new 'millionaire baby.' (They used to call
Douglas that, once upon a time.) Before they got through, they had
made it triplets. Jack says Douglas is the one man in New York who
can afford them."

"Your friend Jack seems to be what they call a wag," I commented.

"It isn't everybody that Douglas will let carry on with him like
that. He takes himself seriously, as a rule. And he expects to take
the new baby seriously."

"It generally binds a man tighter to his wife, don't you think?"

I watched her closely, and saw her smile at my naivet�. "No," she
said, "I don't. It leaves them restless. It's a bore all round."

I did not dispute her authority; she ought to know her husbands, I
thought.

She was facing the mirror, putting up her hair; and in the midst of
the operation she laughed. "All that evening, while we were having a
jolly time at Jack Taylor's, Larry was here waiting."

"Then no wonder you had a row!" I said.

"He hadn't told me he was coming. And was I to sit here all night
alone? It's always the same--I never knew a man who really in his
heart was willing for you to have any friends, or any sort of good
time without him."

"Perhaps," I replied, "he's afraid you mightn't be true to him." I
meant this for a jest, of the sort that Claire and her friends would
appreciate. Little did I foresee where it was to lead us!

I remember how once on the farm my husband had a lot of dynamite,
blasting out stumps; and my emotions when I discovered the children
innocently playing with a stick of it. Something like these children
I seem now to myself, looking back on this visit to Claire, and our
talk.

"You know," she observed, without smiling, "Larry's got a bee in his
hat. I've seen men who were jealous, and kept watch over women, but
never one that was obsessed like him."

"What's it about?"

"He's been reading a book about diseases, and he tells me tales
about what may happen to me, and what may happen to him. When you've
listened a while, you can see microbes crawling all over the walls
of the room."

"Well----" I began.

"I was sick of his lecturing, so I said, 'Larry, you'll have to do
like me--have everything there is, and get over it, and then you
won't need to worry.'"

I sat still, staring at her; I think I must have stopped breathing.
At the end of an eternity, I said, "You've not really had any of
these diseases, Claire?"

"Who hasn't?" she countered.

Again there was a pause. "You know," I observed, "some of them are
dangerous----"

"Oh, of course," she answered, lightly. "There's one that makes your
nose fall in and your hair fall out--but you haven't seen anything
like that happening to me!"

"But there's another," I hinted--"one that's much more common." And
when she did not take the hint, I continued, "Also it's more serious
than people generally realize."

She shrugged her shoulders. "What of it? Men bring you these
things, and it's part of the game. So what's the use of bothering?"

9. There was a long silence; I had to have time to decide what
course to take. There was so much that I wanted to get from her, and
so much that I wanted to hide from her!

"I don't want to bore you, Claire," I began, finally, "but really
this is a matter of importance to you. You see, I've been reading up
on the subject as well as Larry. The doctors have been making new
discoveries. They used to think this was just a local infection,
like a cold, but now they find it's a blood disease, and has the
gravest consequences. For one thing, it causes most of the surgical
operations that have to be performed on women."

"Maybe so," she said, still indifferent. "I've had two operations.
But it's ancient history now."

"You mayn't have reached the end yet," I persisted. "People suppose
they are cured of gonorrhea, when really it's only suppressed, and
is liable to break out again at any time."

"Yes, I knew. That's some of the information Larry had been making
love to me with."

"It may get into the joints and cause rheumatism; it may cause
neuralgia; it's been known to affect the heart. Also it causes
two-thirds of all the blindness in infants----"

And suddenly Claire laughed. "That's Sylvia Castleman's lookout it
seems to me!"

"Oh! OH!" I whispered, losing my self-control.

"What's the matter?" she asked, and I noticed that her voice had
become sharp.

"Do you really mean what you've just implied?"

"That Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver may have to pay something for what she
has done to me? Well, what of it?" And suddenly Claire flew into a
passion, as she always did when our talk came to her rival. "Why
shouldn't she take chances the same as the rest of us? Why should I
have it and she get off?"

I fought for my composure. After a pause, I said: "It's not a thing
we want anybody to have, Claire. We don't want anybody to take such
a chance. The girl ought to have been told."

"Told? Do you imagine she would have given up her great catch?"

"She might have, how can you be sure? Anyhow, she should have had
the chance."

There was a long silence. I was so shaken that it was hard for me to
find words. "As a matter of fact," said Claire, grimly, "I thought
of warning her myself. There'd have been some excitement at least!
You remember--when they came out of church. You helped to stop me!
"

"It would have been too late then," I heard myself saying.

"Well," she exclaimed, with fresh excitement, "it's Miss Sylvia's
turn now! We'll see if she's such a grand lady that she can't get my
diseases!"

I could no longer contain myself. "Claire," I cried, "you are
talking like a devil!"

She picked up a powder-puff, and began to use it diligently. "I
know," she said--and I saw her burning eyes in the glass--"you can't
fool me. You've tried to be kind, but you despise me in your heart.
You think I'm as bad as any woman of the street. Very well then, I
speak for my class, and I tell you, this is where we prove our
humanity. They throw us out, but you see we get back in!"

"My dear woman," I said, "you don't understand. You'd not feel as
you do, If you knew that the person to pay the penalty might be an
innocent little child."

"_Their_ child! Yes, it's too bad if there has to be anything the
matter with the little prince! But I might as well tell you the
truth--I've had that in mind all along. I didn't know just what
would happen, or how--I don't believe anybody does, the doctors who
pretend to are just faking you. But I knew Douglas was rotten, and
maybe his children would be rotten, and they'd all of them suffer.
That was one of the things that kept me from interfering and
smashing him up."

I was speechless now, and Claire, watching me, laughed. "You look as
if you'd had no idea of it. Don't you know that I told you at the
time?"

"You told me at the time!"

"I suppose, you didn't understand. I'm apt to talk French when I'm
excited. We have a saying: 'The wedding present which the mistress
leaves in the basket of the bride.' That was pretty near telling,
wasn't it?"

"Yes," I said, in a low voice.

And the other, after watching me for a moment more, went on: "You
think I'm revengeful, don't you? Well, I used to reproach myself
with this, and I tried to fight it down; but the time comes when you
want people to pay for what they take from you. Let me tell you
something that I never told to anyone, that I never expected to
tell. You see me drinking and going to the devil; you hear me
talking the care-free talk of my world, but in the beginning I was
really in love with Douglas van Tuiver, and I wanted his child. I
wanted it so that it was an ache to me. And yet, what chance did I
have? I'd have been the joke of his set for ever if I'd breathed it;
I'd have been laughed out of the town. I even tried at one time to
trap him--to get his child in spite of him, but I found that the
surgeons had cut me up, and I could never have a child. So I have to
make the best of it--I have to agree with my friends that it's a
good thing, it saves me trouble! But _she_ comes along, and she has
what I wanted, and all the world thinks it wonderful and sublime.
She's a beautiful young mother! What's she ever done in her life
that she has everything, and I go without? You may spend your time
shedding tears over her and what may happen to her but for my part,
I say this--let her take her chances! Let her take her chances with
the other women in the world--the women she's too good and too pure
to know anything about!"

10. I came out of Claire's house, sick with horror. Not since the
time when I had read my poor nephew's letter had I been so shaken.
Why had I not thought long ago of questioning Claire about these
matters. How could I have left Sylvia all this time exposed to
peril?

The greatest danger was to her child at the time of birth. I figured
up, according to the last letter I had received; there was about ten
days yet, and so I felt some relief. I thought first of sending a
telegram, but reflected that it would be difficult, not merely to
tell her what to do in a telegram, but to explain to her afterwards
why I had chosen this extraordinary method. I recollected that in
her last letter she had mentioned the name of the surgeon who was
coming from New York to attend her during her confinement. Obviously
the thing for me to do was to see this surgeon.

"Well, madame?" he said, when I was seated in his inner office.

He was a tall, elderly man, immaculately groomed, and formal and
precise in his manner. "Dr. Overton," I began, "my friend, Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver writes me that you are going to Florida shortly."

"That is correct," he said.

"I have come to see you about a delicate matter. I presume I need
hardly say that I am relying upon the seal of professional secrecy."

I saw his gaze become suddenly fixed. "Certainly, madame," he said.

"I am taking this course because Mrs. van Tuiver is a very dear
friend of mine, and I am concerned about her welfare. It has
recently come to my knowledge that she has become exposed to
infection by a venereal disease."

He would hardly have started more if I had struck him. "HEY?" he
cried, forgetting his manners.

"It would not help you any," I said, "if I were to go into details
about this unfortunate matter. Suffice it to say that my information
is positive and precise--that it could hardly be more so."

There was a long silence. He sat with eyes rivetted upon me. "What
is this disease?" he demanded, at last.

I named it, and then again there was a pause. "How long has
this--this possibility of infection existed?"

"Ever since her marriage, nearly eighteen months ago."

That told him a good part of the story. I felt his look boring me
through. Was I a mad woman? Or some new kind of blackmailer? Or, was
I, possibly, a Claire? I was grateful for my forty-cent bonnet and
my forty-seven years.

"Naturally," he said at length, "this information startles me."

"When you have thought it over," I responded, "you will realise that
no possible motive could bring me here but concern for the welfare
of my friend."

He took a few moments to consider. "That may be true, madame, but
let me add that when you say you KNOW this----"

He stopped. "I MEAN that I know it," I said, and stopped in turn.

"Has Mrs. van Tuiver herself any idea of this situation?"

"None whatever. On the contrary, she was assured before her marriage
that no such possibility existed."

Again I felt him looking through me, but I left him to make what he
could of my information. "Doctor," I continued, "I presume there is
no need to point out to a man in your position the seriousness of
this matter, both to the mother and to the child."

"Certainly there is not."

"I assume that you are familiar with the precautions that have to be
taken with regard to the eyes of the child?"

"Certainly, madame." This with just a touch of HAUTEUR, and then,
suddenly: "Are you by any chance a nurse?"

"No," I replied, "but many years ago I was forced by tragedy in my
own family to realise the seriousness of the venereal peril. So when
I learned this fact about my friend, my first thought was that you
should be informed of it. I trust that you will appreciate my
position."

"Certainly, madame, certainly," he made haste to say. "You are quite
right, and you may rest assured that everything will be done that
our best knowledge directs. I only regret that the information did
not come to me sooner."

"It only came to me about an hour ago," I said, as I rose to leave.
"The blame, therefore, must rest upon another person."

I needed to say no more. He bowed me politely out, and I walked down
the street, and realised that I was restless and wretched. I
wandered at random for a while. trying to think what else I could
do, for my own peace of mind, if not for Sylvia's welfare. I found
myself inventing one worry after another. Dr. Overton had not said
just when he was going, and suppose she were to need someone at
once? Or suppose something were to happen to him--if he were to be
killed upon the long train-journey? I was like a mother who has had
a terrible dream about her child--she must rush and fling her arms
about the child. I realised that I wanted to see Sylvia!

She had begged me to come; and I was worn out and had been urged by
the office to take a rest. Suddenly I bolted into a store, and
telephoned the railroad station about trains to Southern Florida. I
hailed a taxi-cab, rode to my home post-haste, and flung a few of my
belongings into a bag and the waiting cab sped with me to the ferry.
In little more than two hours after Claire had told me the dreadful
tidings, I was speeding on my way to Sylvia.

11. From a train-window I had once beheld a cross-section of America
from West to East; now I beheld another from North to South. In the
afternoon were the farms and country-homes of New Jersey; and then
in the morning endless wastes of wilderness, and straggling fields
of young corn and tobacco; turpentine forests, with half-stripped
negroes working, and a procession of "depots," with lanky men
chewing tobacco, and negroes basking in the blazing sun. Then
another night, and there was the pageant of Florida: palmettos, and
other trees of which one had seen pictures in the geography books;
stretches of vine-tangled swamps, where one looked for alligators;
orange-groves in blossom, and gardens full of flowers beyond
imagining. Every hour, of course, it got hotter; I was not, like
Sylvia, used to it, and whenever the train stopped I sat by the open
window, mopping the perspiration from my face.

We were due at Miami in the afternoon; but there was a freight-train
off the track ahead of us, and so for three hours I sat chafing with
impatience, worrying the conductor with futile questions. I had to
make connections at Miami with a train which ran to the last point
on the mainland, where the construction-work over the keys was going
forward. And if I missed that last train, I would have to wait in
Miami till morning. I had better wait there, anyhow, the conductor
argued; but I insisted that my friends, to whom I had telegraphed
two days before, would meet me with a launch and take me to their
place that night.

We got in half an hour late for the other train; but this was the
South, I discovered, and they had waited for us. I shifted my bag
and myself across the platform, and we moved on. But then another
problem arose; we were running into a storm. It came with great
suddenness; one minute all was still, with a golden sunset, and the
next it was so dark that I could barely see the palm-trees, bent
over, swaying madly--like people with arms stretched out, crying in
distress. I could hear the roaring of the wind above that of the
train, and I asked the conductor in consternation if this could be a
hurricane. It was not the season for hurricanes, he replied; but it
was "some storm, all right," and I would not find any boat to take
me to the keys until it was over.

It was absurd of me to be nervous, I kept telling myself; but there
was something in me that cried out to be there, to be there! I got
out of the train, facing what I refrain from calling a hurricane out
of deference to local authority. It was all I could do to keep from
being blown across the station-platform, and I was drenched with the
spray and bewildered by the roaring of the waves that beat against
the pier beyond. Inside the station, I questioned the agent. The
launch of the van Tuivers had not been in that day; if it had been
on the way, it must have sought shelter somewhere. My telegram to
Mrs. van Tuiver had been received two days before, and delivered by
a boatman whom they employed for that purpose. Presumably,
therefore, I would be met. I asked how long this gale was apt to
last; the answer was from one to three days.

Then I asked about shelter for the night. This was a "jumping-off"
place, said the agent, with barracks and shanties for a
construction-gang; there were saloons, and what was called a hotel,
but it wouldn't do for a lady. I pleaded that I was not
fastidious--being anxious to nullify the effect which the name van
Tuiver had produced. But the agent would have it that the place was
unfit for even a Western farmer's wife; and as I was not anxious to
take the chance of being blown overboard in the darkness, I spent
the night on one of the benches in the station. I lay, listening to
the incredible clamour of wind and waves, feeling the building
quiver, and wondering if each gust might not blow it away.

I was out at dawn, the force of the wind having abated somewhat by
that time. I saw before me a waste of angry foam-strewn water, with
no sign of any craft upon it. Late in the morning came the big
steamer which ran to Key West, in connection with the railroad; it
made a difficult landing, and I interviewed the captain, with the
idea of bribing him to take me to my destination. But he had his
schedule, which neither storms nor the name of van Tuiver could
alter. Besides, he pointed out, he could not land me at their place,
as his vessel drew too much water to get anywhere near; and if he
landed me elsewhere, I should be no better off, "If your friends are
expecting you, they'll come here," he said, "and their launch can
travel when nothing else can."

To pass the time I went to inspect the viaduct of the railway-to-be.
The first stretch was completed, a long series of concrete arches,
running out, apparently, into the open sea. It was one of the
engineering wonders of the world, but I fear I did not appreciate
it. Towards mid-afternoon I made out a speck of a boat over the
water, and my friend, the station-agent, remarked, "There's your
launch."

I expressed my amazement that they should have ventured out in such
weather. I had had in mind the kind of tiny open craft that one
hears making day and night hideous at summer-resorts; but when the
"Merman" drew near, I realized afresh what it was to be the guest of
a multi-millionaire. She was about fifty feet long, a vision of
polished brass and shining, new-varnished cedar. She rammed her
shoulder into the waves and flung them contemptuously to one side;
her cabin was tight, dry as the saloon of a liner.

Three men emerged on deck to assist in the difficult process of
making a landing. One of them sprang to the dock, and confronting
me, inquired if I was Mrs. Abbott. He explained that they had set
out to meet me the previous afternoon, but had had to take refuge
behind one of the keys.

"How is Mrs. van Tuiver?" I asked, quickly.

"She is well."

"I don't suppose--the baby----" I hinted.

"No, ma'am, not yet," said the man; and after that I felt interested
in what he had to say about the storm and its effects. We could
return at once, it seemed, if I did not mind being pitched about.

"How long does it take?" I asked.

"Three hours, in weather like this. It's about fifty miles."

"But then it will be dark," I objected.

"That won't matter, ma'am--we have plenty of light of our own. We
shan't have trouble, unless the wind rises, and there's a chain of
keys all the way, where we can get shelter if it does. The worst you
have to fear is spending a night on board."

I reflected that I could not well be more uncomfortable than I had
been the previous night, so I voted for a start. There was mail and
some supplies to be put on board; then I made a spring for the deck,
as it surged up towards me on a rising wave, and in a moment more
the cabin-door had shut behind me, and I was safe and snug, in the
midst of leather and mahogany and electric-lighted magnificence.
Through the heavy double windows I saw the dock swing round behind
us, and saw the torrents of green spray sweep over us and past. I
grasped at the seat to keep myself from being thrown forward, and
then grasped behind, to keep from going in that direction. I had a
series of sensations as of an elevator stopping suddenly--and then I
draw the curtains of the "Merman's" cabin, and invite the reader to
pass by. This is Sylvia's story, and not mine, and it is of no
interest what happened to me during that trip. I will only remind
the reader that I had lived my life in the far West, and there were
some things I could not have foreseen.

12. "We are there, ma'am," I heard one of the boatmen say, and I
realised vaguely that the pitching had ceased. He helped me to sit
up, and I saw the search-light of the craft sweeping the shore of an
island. "It passes off 'most as quick as it comes, ma'am," added my
supporter, and for this I murmured feeble thanks.

We came to a little bay, where the power was shut off, and we glided
towards the shore. There was a boat-house, a sort of miniature
dry-dock, with a gate which closed behind us. I had visions of
Sylvia waiting to meet me, but apparently our arrival had not been
noted, and for this I was grateful. There were seats in the
boat-house, and I sank into one, and asked the man to wait a few
minutes while I recovered myself. When I got up and went to the
house, what I found made me quickly forget that I had such a thing
as a body.

There was a bright moon, I remember, and I could see the long, low
bungalow, with windows gleaming through the palm-trees. A woman's
figure emerged from the house and came down the white shell-path to
meet me. My heart leaped. My beloved!

But then I saw it was the English maid, whom I had come to know in
New York; I saw, too, that her face was alight with excitement. "Oh,
my lady!" she cried. "The baby's come!"

It was like a blow in the face. "_What?_" I gasped.

"Came early this morning. A girl."

"But--I thought it wasn't till next week!"

"I know, but it's here. In that terrible storm, when we thought the
house was going to be washed away! Oh, my lady, it's the loveliest
baby!"

I had presence of mind enough to try to hide my dismay. The
semi-darkness was a fortunate thing for me. "How is the mother?" I
asked.

"Splendid. She's asleep now."

"And the child?"

"Oh! Such a dear you never saw!"

"And it's all right?"

"It's just the living image of its mother! You shall see!"

We moved towards the house, slowly, while I got my thoughts
together. "Dr. Perrin is here?" I asked.

"Yes. He's gone to his place to sleep."

"And the nurse?"

"She's with the child. Come this way."

We went softly up the steps of the veranda. All the rooms opened
upon it, and we entered one of them, and by the dim-shaded light I
saw a white-clad woman bending over a crib. "Miss Lyman, this is
Mrs. Abbott," said the maid.

The nurse straightened up. "Oh! so you got here! And just at the
right time!"

"God grant it may be so!" I thought to myself. "So this is the
child!" I said, and bent over the crib. The nurse turned up the
light for me.

It is the form in which the miracle of life becomes most apparent to
us, and dull indeed must be he who can encounter it without being
stirred to the depths. To see, not merely new life come into the
world, but life which has been made by ourselves, or by those we
love--life that is a mirror and copy of something dear to us! To see
this tiny mite of warm and living flesh, and to see that it was
Sylvia! To trace each beloved lineament, so much alike, and yet so
different--half a portrait and half a caricature, half sublime and
half ludicrous! The comical little imitation of her nose, with each
dear little curve, with even a remainder of the tiny groove
underneath the tip, and the tiny corresponding dimple underneath the
chin! The soft silken fuzz which was some day to be Sylvia's golden
glory! The delicate, sensitive lips, which were some day to quiver
with feeling! I gazed at them and saw them moving, I saw the breast
moving--and a wave of emotion swept over me, and the tears
half-blinded me as I knelt.

But I could not forget the reason for my coming. It meant little
that the child was alive and seemingly well; I was not dealing with
a disease which, like syphilis, starves and deforms in the very
womb. The little one was asleep, but I moved the light so as to
examine its eyelids. Then I turned to the nurse and asked: "Miss
Lyman, doesn't it seem to you the eyelids are a trifle inflamed?"

"Why, I hadn't noticed it," she answered.

"Were the eyes washed?" I inquired.

"I washed the baby, of course--"

"I mean the eyes especially. The doctor didn't drop anything into
them?"

"I don't think he considered it necessary."

"It's an important precaution," I replied; "there are always
possibilities of infection."

"Possibly," said the other. "But you know, we did not expect this.
Dr. Overton was to be here in three or four days."

"Dr. Perrin is asleep?" I asked.

"Yes. He was up all last night."

"I think I will have to ask you to waken him," I said.

"Is it as serious as that?" she inquired, anxiously, having sensed
some of the emotion I was trying to conceal.

"It might be very serious," I said. "I really ought to have a talk
with the doctor."

13. The nurse went out, and I drew up a chair and sat by the crib,
watching the infant go back to sleep. I was glad to be alone, to
have a chance to get myself together. But suddenly I heard a rustle
of skirts in the doorway behind me, and turned and saw a white-clad
figure; an elderly gentlewoman, slender and fragile, grey-haired and
rather pale, wearing a soft dressing-gown. Aunt Varina!

I rose. "This must be Mrs. Abbott," she said. Oh, these soft,
caressing Southern voices, that cling to each syllable as a lover to
a hand at parting.

She was a very prim and stately little lady, and I think she did not
intend to shake hands; but I felt pretty certain that under her
coating of formality, she was eager for a chance to rhapsodize. "Oh,
what a lovely child!" I cried; and instantly she melted.

"You have seen our babe!" she exclaimed; and I could not help
smiling. A few months ago, "the little stranger," and now "our
babe"!

She bent over the cradle, with her dear old sentimental, romantic
soul in her eyes. For a minute or two she quite forgot me; then,
looking up, she murmured, "It is as wonderful to me as if it were my
own!"

"All of us who love Sylvia feel that," I responded.

She rose, and suddenly remembering hospitality, asked me as to my
present needs. Then she said, "I must go and see to sending some
telegrams."

"Telegrams?" I inquired.

"Yes. Think what this news will mean to dear Douglas! And to Major
Castleman!"

"You haven't informed them?"

"We couldn't send any smaller boat on account of the storm. We must
telegraph Dr. Overton also, you understand."

"To tell him not to come?" I ventured. "But don't you think, Mrs.
Tuis, that he may wish to come anyhow?"

"Why should he wish that?"

"I'm not sure, but--I think he might." How I longed for a little of
Sylvia's skill in social lying! "Every newly-born infant ought to be
examined by a specialist, you know; there may be a particular
_r�gime,_ a diet for the mother--one cannot say."

"Dr. Perrin didn't consider it necessary."

"I am going to have a talk with Dr. Perrin at once," I said.

I saw a troubled look in her eyes. "You don't mean you think there's
anything the matter?"

"No--no," I lied. "But I'm sure you ought to wait before you have
the launch go. Please do."

"If you insist," she said. I read bewilderment in her manner, and
just a touch of resentment. Was it not presumptuous of me, a
stranger, and one--well, possibly not altogether a lady? She groped
for words; and the ones that came were: "Dear Douglas must not be
kept waiting."

I was too polite to offer the suggestion that "dear Douglas" might
be finding ways to amuse himself. The next moment I heard steps
approaching on the veranda, and turned to meet the nurse with the
doctor.

14. "How do you do, Mrs. Abbott?" said Dr. Perrin. He was in his
dressing-gown, and had a newly-awakened look. I started to
apologize, but he replied, "It's pleasant to see a new face in our
solitude. Two new faces!"

That was behaving well, I thought, for a man who had been routed out
of sleep. I tried to meet his mood. "Dr. Perrin, Mrs. van Tuiver
tells me that you object to amateur physicians. But perhaps you
won't mind regarding me as a midwife. I have three children of my
own, and I've had to help bring others into the world."

"All right," he smiled. "We'll consider you qualified. What is the
matter?"

"I wanted to ask you about the child's eyes. It is a wise precaution
to drop some nitrate of silver into them, to provide against
possible infection."

I waited for my answer. "There have been no signs of any sort of
infection in this case," he said, at last.

"Perhaps not. But it is not necessary to wait, in such a matter. You
have not taken the precaution?"

"No, madam."

"You have some of the drug, of course?"

Again there was a pause. "No, madam, I fear that I have not."

I winced, involuntarily. I could not hide my distress. "Dr. Perrin,"
I exclaimed, "you came to attend a confinement case, and you omitted
to provide something so essential!"

There was nothing left of the little man's affability now. "In the
first place," he said, "I must remind you that I did not come to
attend a confinement case. I came to look after Mrs. van Tuiver's
condition up _to_ the time of confinement."

"But you knew there would always be the possibility of an accident!"

"Yes, to be sure."

"And you didn't have any nitrate of silver!"

"Madam," he said, stiffly, "there is no use for this drug except in
one contingency."

"I know," I cried, "but it is an important precaution. It is the
practice to use it in all maternity hospitals."

"Madam, I have visited hospitals, and I think I know something of
what the practice is."

So there we were, at a deadlock. There was silence for a space.

"Would you mind sending for the drug?" I asked, at last.

"I presume," he said, with _hauteur,_ "it will do no harm to have it
on hand."

I was aware of an elderly lady watching us, with consternation
written upon every sentimental feature. "Dr. Perrin," I said, "if
Mrs. Tuis will pardon me, I think I ought to speak with you alone."
The nurse hastily withdrew; and I saw the elderly lady draw herself
up with terrible dignity--and then suddenly quail, and turn and
follow the nurse.

I told the little man what I knew. After he had had time to get over
his consternation, he said that fortunately there did not seem to be
any sign of trouble.

"There does seem so to me," I replied. "It may be only my
imagination, but I think the eyelids are inflamed."

I held the baby for him, while he made an examination. He admitted
that there seemed to be ground for uneasiness. His professional
dignity was now gone, and he was only too glad to be human.

"Dr. Perrin," I said, "there is only one thing we can do--to get
some nitrate of silver at the earliest possible moment. Fortunately,
the launch is here."

"I will have it start at once," he said. "It will have to go to Key
West."

"And how long will that take?"

"It depends upon the sea. In good weather it takes us eight hours to
go and return." I could not repress a shudder. The child might be
blind in eight hours!

But there was no time to be wasted in foreboding. "About Dr.
Overton," I said. "Don't you think he had better come?" But I
ventured to add the hint that Mr. van Tuiver would hardly wish
expense to be considered in such an emergency; and in the end, I
persuaded the doctor not merely to telegraph for the great surgeon,
but to ask a hospital in Atlanta to send the nearest eye-specialist
by the first train.

We called back Mrs. Tuis, and I apologized abjectly for my
presumption, and Dr. Perrin announced that he thought he ought to
see Dr. Overton, and another doctor as well. I saw fear leap into
Aunt Varina's eyes. "Oh, what is it?" she cried. "What is the matter
with our babe?"

I helped the doctor to answer polite nothings to all her questions.
"Oh, the poor, dear lady!" I thought to myself. The poor, dear lady!
What a tearing away of veils and sentimental bandages was written in
her book of fate for that night!

15. I find myself lingering over these preliminaries, dreading the
plunge into the rest of my story. We spent our time hovering over
the child's crib, and in two or three hours the little eyelids had
become so inflamed that there could no longer be any doubt what was
happening. We applied alternate hot and cold cloths; we washed the
eyes in a solution of boric acid, and later, in our desperation,
with bluestone. But we were dealing with the virulent gonococcus,
and we neither expected nor obtained much result from these
measures. In a couple of hours more the eyes were beginning to exude
pus, and the poor infant was wailing in torment.

"Oh, what can it be? Tell me what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Tuis.
She sought to catch the child in her arms, and when I quickly
prevented her, she turned upon me in anger. "What do you mean?"

"The child must be quiet," I said.

"But I wish to comfort it!" And when I still insisted, she burst out
wildly: "What _right_ have you?"

"Mrs. Tuis," I said, gently, "it is possible the infant may have a
very serious infection. If so, you would be apt to catch it."

She answered with a hysterical cry: "My precious innocent! Do you
think that I would be afraid of anything it could have?"

"You may not be afraid, but we are. We should have to take care of
you, and one case is more than enough."

Suddenly she clutched me by the arm. "Tell me what this awful thing
is! I demand to know!"

"Mrs. Tuis," said the doctor, interfering, "we are not yet sure what
the trouble is, we only wish to take precautions. It is really
imperative that you should not handle this child or even go near it.
There is nothing you can possibly do."

She was willing to take orders from him; he spoke the same dialect
as herself, and with the same quaint stateliness. A charming little
Southern gentleman--I could realise how Douglas van Tuiver had
"picked him out for his social qualities." In the old-fashioned
Southern medical college where he had got his training, I suppose
they had taught him the old-fashioned idea of gonorrhea. Now he was
acquiring our extravagant modern notions in the grim school of
experience!

It was necessary to put the nurse on her guard as to the risks we
were running. We should have had concave glasses to protect our
eyes, and we spent part of our time washing our hands in bichloride
solution.

"Mrs. Abbott, what is it?" whispered the woman.

"It has a long name," I replied--"_opthalmia neonatorum._"

"And what has caused it?"

"The original cause," I responded, "is a man." I was not sure if
that was according to the ethics of the situation, but the words
came.

Before long the infected eye-sockets were two red and yellow masses
of inflammation, and the infant was screaming like one of the
damned. We had to bind up its eyes; I was tempted to ask the doctor
to give it an opiate for fear lest it should scream itself into
convulsions. Then as poor Mrs. Tuis was pacing the floor, wringing
her hands and sobbing hysterically, Dr. Perrin took me to one side
and said: "I think she will have to be told."

The poor, poor lady!

"She might as well understand now as later," he continued. "She will
have to help keep the situation from the mother."

"Yes," I said, faintly; and then, "Who shall tell her?"

"I think," suggested the doctor, "she might prefer to be told by a
woman."

So I shut my lips together and took the distracted lady gently by
the arm and led her to the door. We stole like two criminals down
the veranda, and along the path to the beach, and near the boathouse
we stopped, and I began.

"Mrs. Tuis, you may remember a circumstance which your niece
mentioned to me--that just before her marriage she urged you to have
certain inquiries made as to Mr. van Tuiver's health, his fitness
for marriage?"

Never shall I forget her face at that moment. "Sylvia told you
that!"

"The inquiries were made," I went on, "but not carefully enough, it
seems. Now you behold the consequence of this negligence."

I saw her blank stare. I added: "The one to pay for it is the
child."

"You--you mean--" she stammered, her voice hardly a whisper. "Oh--it
is impossible!" Then, with a flare of indignation: "Do you realise
what you are implying--that Mr. van Tuiver--"

"There is no question of implying," I said, quietly. "It is the
facts we have to face now, and you will have to help us to face
them."

She cowered and swayed before me, hiding her face in her hands. I
heard her sobbing and murmuring incoherent cries to her god. I took
the poor lady's hand, and bore with her as long as I could, until,
being at the end of my patience with prudery and purity and
chivalry, and all the rest of the highfalutin romanticism of the
South, I said: "Mrs Tuis, it is necessary that you should get
yourself together. You have a serious duty before you--that you owe
both to Sylvia and her child."

"What is it?" she whispered. The word "duty" had motive power for
her.

"At all hazards, Sylvia must be kept in ignorance of the calamity
for the present. If she were to learn of it it would quite possibly
throw her into a fever, and cost her life or the child's. You must
not make any sound that she can hear, and you must not go near her
until you have completely mastered your emotions."

"Very well," she murmured. She was really a brave little body, but
I, not knowing her, and thinking only of the peril, was cruel in
hammering things into her consciousness. Finally, I left her, seated
upon the steps of the deserted boat-house, rocking back and forth
and sobbing softly to herself--one of the most pitiful figures it
has ever been my fortune to encounter in my pilgrimage through a
world of sentimentality and incompetence.

16. I went back to the house, and because we feared the sounds of
the infant's crying might carry, we hung blankets before the doors
and windows of the room, and sat in the hot enclosure, shuddering,
silent, grey with fear. After an hour or two, Mrs. Tuis rejoined us,
stealing in and seating herself at one side of the room, staring
from one to another of us with wide eyes of fright.

By the time the first signs of dawn appeared, the infant had cried
itself into a state of exhaustion. The faint light that got into the
room revealed the three of us, listening to the pitiful whimpering.
I was faint with weakness, but I had to make an effort and face the
worst ordeal of all. There came a tapping at the door--the maid, to
say that Sylvia was awake and had heard of my arrival and wished to
see me. I might have put off our meeting for a while, on the plea of
exhaustion, but I preferred to have it over with, and braced myself
and went slowly to her room.

In the doorway I paused for an instant to gaze at her. She was
exquisite, lying there with the flush of sleep still upon her, and
the ecstasy of her great achievement in her face. I fled to her, and
we caught each other in our arms. "Oh, Mary, Mary! I'm so glad
you've come!" And then: "Oh, Mary, isn't it the loveliest baby!"

"Perfectly glorious!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm so happy--so happy as I never dreamed! I've no words to
tell you about it."

"You don't need any words--I've been through it," I said.

"Oh, but she's so _beautiful!_ Tell me, honestly, isn't that really
so?"

"My dear," I said, "she is like you."

"Mary," she went on, half whispering, "I think it solves all my
problems--all that I wrote you about. I don't believe I shall ever
be unhappy again. I can't believe that such a thing has really
happened--that I've been given such a treasure. And she's my own! I
can watch her little body grow and help to make it strong and
beautiful! I can help mould her little mind--see it opening up, one
chamber of wonder after another! I can teach her all the things I
have had to grope so to get!"

"Yes," I said, trying to speak with conviction. I added, hastily:
"I'm glad you don't find motherhood disappointing."

"Oh, it's a miracle!" she exclaimed. "A woman who could be
dissatisfied with anything afterwards would be an ingrate!" She
paused, then added: "Mary, now she's here in flesh, I feel she'll be
a bond between Douglas and me. He must see her rights, her claim
upon life, as he couldn't see mine."

I assented gravely. So that was the thing she was thinking most
about--a bond between her husband and herself! A moment later the
nurse appeared in the doorway, and Sylvia set up a cry: "My baby!
Where's my baby? I want to see my baby!"

"Sylvia, dear," I said, "there's something about the baby that has
to be explained."

Instantly she was alert. "What is the matter?"

I laughed. "Nothing, dear, that amounts to anything. But the little
one's eyes are inflamed--that is to say, the lids. It's something
that happens to newly-born infants."

"Well, then?" she said.

"Nothing, only the doctor's had to put some salve on them, and they
don't look very pretty."

"I don't mind that, if it's all right."

"But we've had to put a bandage over them, and it looks forbidding.
Also the child is apt to cry."

"I must see her at once!" she exclaimed.

"Just now she's asleep, so don't make us disturb her."

"But how long will this last?"

"Not very long. Meantime you must be sensible and not mind. It's
something I made the doctor do, and you mustn't blame me, or I'll be
sorry I came to you."

"You dear thing," she said, and put her hand in mine. And then,
suddenly: "Why did you take it into your head to come, all of a
sudden?"

"Don't ask me," I smiled. "I have no excuse. I just got homesick and
had to see you."

"It's perfectly wonderful that you should be here now," she
declared. "But you look badly. Are you tired?"

"Yes, dear," I said. (Such a difficult person to deceive!) "To tell
the truth, I'm pretty nearly done up. You see, I was caught in the
storm, and I was desperately sea-sick."

"Why, you poor dear! Why didn't you go to sleep?"

"I didn't want to sleep. I was too much excited by everything. I
came to see one Sylvia and I found two!"

"Isn't it absurd," she cried, "how she looks like me? Oh, I want to
see her again. How long will it be before I can have her?"

"My dear," I said, "you mustn't worry--"

"Oh, don't mind me, I'm just playing. I'm so happy, I want to
squeeze her in my arms all the time. Just think, Mary, they won't
let me nurse her, yet--a whole day now! Can that be right?"

"Nature will take care of that," I said.

"Yes, but how can you be sure what Nature means? Maybe it's what the
child is crying about, and it's the crying that makes its eyes red."

I felt a sudden spasm grip my heart. "No, dear, no," I said,
hastily. "You must let Dr. Perrin attend to these things, for I've
just had to interfere with his arrangements, and he'll be getting
cross pretty soon."

"Oh," she cried with laughter in her eyes, "you've had a scene with
him? I knew you would! He's so quaint and old-fashioned!"

"Yes," I said, "and he talks exactly like your aunt."

"Oh! You've met her too! I'm missing all the fun!"

I had a sudden inspiration--one that I was proud of. "My dear girl,"
I said, "maybe _you_ call it fun!" And I looked really agitated.

"Why, what's the matter?" she cried.

"What could you expect?" I asked. "I fear, my dear Sylvia, I've
shocked your aunt beyond all hope."

"What have you done?"

"I've talked about things I'd no business to--I've bossed the
learned doctor--and I'm sure Aunt Varina has guessed I'm not a
lady."

"Oh, tell me about it!" cried Sylvia, full of delight.

But I could not keep up the game any longer. "Not now, dear," I
said. "It's a long story, and I really am exhausted. I must go and
get some rest."

I rose, and she caught my hand, whispering: "I shall be happy, Mary!
I shall be really happy now!" And then I turned and fled, and when I
was out of sight of the doorway, I literally ran. At the other end
of the veranda I sank down upon the steps, and wept softly to
myself.

17. The launch arrived, bringing the nitrate of silver. A solution
was dropped into the baby's eyes, and then we could do nothing but
wait. I might have lain down and really tried to rest; but the maid
came again, with the announcement that Sylvia was asking for her
aunt. Excuses would have tended to excite her suspicions; so poor
Mrs. Tuis had to take her turn at facing the ordeal, and I had to
drill and coach her for it. I had a vision of the poor lady going in
to her niece, and suddenly collapsing. Then there would begin a
cross-examination, and Sylvia would worm out the truth, and we might
have a case of puerperal fever on our hands.

This I explained afresh to Mrs. Tuis, having taken her into her own
room and closed the door for that purpose. She clutched me with her
shaking hands and whispered, "Oh, Mrs. Abbott, you will _never_ let
Sylvia find out what caused this trouble?"

I drew on my reserve supply of patience, and answered, "What I shall
let her find out in the end, I don't know. We shall be guided by
circumstances, and this is no time to discuss the matter. The point
is now to make sure that you can go in and stay with her, and not
let her get an idea there's anything wrong."

"Oh, but you know how Sylvia reads people!" she cried, in sudden
dismay.

"I've fixed it for you," I said. "I've provided something you can be
agitated about."

"What is that?"

"It's _me._" Then, seeing her look of bewilderment, "You must tell
her that I've affronted you, Mrs. Tuis; I've outraged your sense of
propriety. You're indignant with me and you don't see how you can
remain in the house with me--"

"Why, Mrs. Abbott!" she exclaimed, in horror.

"You know it's truth to some extent," I said.

The good lady drew herself up. "Mrs. Abbott, don't tell me that I
have been so rude--"

"Dear Mrs. Tuis," I laughed, "don't stop to apologize just now. You
have not been lacking in courtesy, but I know how I must seem to
you. I am a Socialist. I have a raw, Western accent, and my hands
are big--I've lived on a farm all my life, and done my own work, and
even plowed sometimes. I have no idea of the charms and graces of
life that are everything to you. What is more than that, I am
forward, and thrust my opinions upon other people--"

She simply could not hear me. She was a-tremble with a new
excitement. Worse even than _opthalmia neonatorum_ was plain
speaking to a guest! "Mrs. Abbott, you humiliate me!"

Then I spoke harshly, seeing that I would actually have to shock
her. "I assure you, Mrs. Tuis, that if you don't feel that way about
me, it's simply because you don't know the truth. It is not possible
that you would consider me a proper person to visit Sylvia. I don't
believe in your religion; I don't believe in anything that you would
call religion, and I argue about it at the least provocation. I
deliver violent harangues on street-corners, and have been arrested
during a strike. I believe in woman's suffrage, I even argue in
approval of window-smashing. I believe that women ought to earn
their own living, and be independent and free from any man's
control. I am a divorced woman--I left my husband because I wasn't
happy with him, what's more, I believe that any woman has a right to
do the same--I'm liable to teach such ideas to Sylvia, and to urge
her to follow them."

The poor lady's eyes were wide and large. "So you see," I exclaimed,
"you really couldn't approve of me! Tell her all this; she knows it
already, but she will be horrified, because I have let you and the
doctor find it out!"

Whereupon Mrs. Tuis started to ascend the pedestal of her dignity.
"Mrs. Abbott, this may be your idea of a jest----"

"Now come," I cried, "let me help you fix your hair, and put on just
a wee bit of powder--not enough to be noticed, you understand----"

I took her to the wash-stand, and poured out some cold water for
her, and saw her bathe her eyes and face, and dry them, and braid
her thin grey hair. While with a powder puff I was trying deftly to
conceal the ravages of the night's crying, the dear lady turned to
me, and whispered in a trembling voice, "Mrs. Abbott, you really
don't mean that dreadful thing you said just now?"

"Which dreadful thing, Mrs. Tuis?"

"That you would tell Sylvia it could possibly be right for her to
leave her husband?"

18. In the course of the day we received word that Dr. Gibson, the
specialist for whom we had telegraphed, was on his way. The boat
which brought his message took back a letter from Dr. Perrin to
Douglas van Tuiver, acquainting him with the calamity which had
befallen. We had talked it over and agreed that there was nothing to
be gained by telegraphing the information. We did not wish any hint
of the child's illness to leak into the newspapers.

I did not envy the great man the hour when he read that letter;
although I knew that the doctor had not failed to assure him that
the victim of his misdeeds should be kept in ignorance. Already the
little man had begun to drop hints to me on this subject.
Unfortunate accidents happened, which were not always to be blamed
upon the husband, nor was it a thing to contemplate lightly, the
breaking up of a family. I gave a non-committal answer, and changed
the subject by asking the doctor not to mention my presence in the
household. If by any chance van Tuiver were to carry his sorrows to
Claire, I did not want my name brought up.

We managed to prevent Sylvia's seeing the child that day and night,
and the next morning came the specialist. He held out no hope of
saving any remnant of the sight, but the child might be so fortunate
as to escape disfigurement--it did not appear that the eyeballs
were destroyed, as happens generally in these cases. This bit of
consolation I still have: that little Elaine, who sits by me as I
write, has left in her pupils a faint trace of the soft
red-brown--just enough to remind us of what we have lost, and keep
fresh in our minds the memory of these sorrows. If I wish to see
what her eyes might have been, I look above my head to the portrait
of Sylvia's noble ancestress, a copy made by a "tramp artist" in
Castleman County, and left with me by Sylvia.

There was the question of the care of the mother--the efforts to
stay the ravages of the germ in the tissues broken and weakened by
the strain of child-birth. We had to invent excuses for the presence
of the new doctor--and yet others for the presence of Dr. Overton,
who came a day later. And then the problem of the nourishing of the
child. It would be a calamity to have to put it upon the bottle, but
on the other hand, there were many precautions necessary to keep the
infection from spreading.

I remember vividly the first time that the infant was fed: all of us
gathered round, with matter-of-course professional air, as if these
elaborate hygienic ceremonies were the universal custom when
newly-born infants first taste their mothers' milk. Standing in the
background, I saw Sylvia start with dismay, as she noted how pale
and thin the poor little one had become. It was hunger that caused
the whimpering, so the nurse declared, busying herself in the
meantime to keep the tiny hands from the mother's face. The latter
sank back and closed her eyes--nothing, it seemed, could prevail
over the ecstasy of that first marvellous sensation, but afterwards
she asked that I might stay with her, and as soon as the others were
gone, she unmasked the batteries of her suspicion upon me. "Mary!
What in the world has happened to my baby?"

So began a new stage in the campaign of lying. "It's nothing,
nothing. Just some infection. It happens frequently."

"But what is the cause of it?"

"We can't tell. It may be a dozen things. There are so many possible
sources of infection about a birth. It's not a very sanitary thing,
you know."

"Mary! Look me in the face!"

"Yes, dear?"

"You're not deceiving me?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean--it's not really something serious? All these doctors--this
mystery--this vagueness!"

"It was your husband, my dear Sylvia, who sent the doctors--it was
his stupid man's way of being attentive." (This at Aunt Varina's
suggestion--the very subtle lady!).

"Mary, I'm worried. My baby looks so badly, and I feel something is
wrong."

"My dear Sylvia," I chided, "if you worry about it you will simply
be harming the child. Your milk may go wrong."

"Oh, that's just it! That's why you would not tell me the truth!"

We persuade ourselves that there are certain circumstances under
which lying is necessary, but always when we come to the lies we
find them an insult to the soul. Each day I perceived that I was
getting in deeper--and each day I watched Aunt Varina and the doctor
busied to push me deeper yet.

There had come a telegram from Douglas van Tuiver to Dr. Perrin,
revealing the matter which stood first in that gentleman's mind. "I
expect no failure in your supply of the necessary tact." By this
vagueness we perceived that he too was trusting no secrets to
telegraph operators. Yet for us it was explicit and illuminative. It
recalled the tone of quiet authority I had noted in his dealings
with his chauffeur, and it sent me off by myself for a while to
shake my fist at all husbands.

19. Mrs. Tuis, of course, had no need of any warning from the head
of the house. The voice of her ancestors guided her in all such
emergencies. The dear lady had got to know me quite well, at the
more or less continuous dramatic rehearsals we conducted; and now
and then her trembling hands would seek to fasten me in the chains
of decency. "Mrs. Abbott, think what a scandal there would be if
Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver were to break with her husband!"

"Yes, my dear Mrs. Tuis-but on the other hand, think what might
happen if she were kept in ignorance in this matter. She might bear
another child."

I got a new realization of the chasms that lay between us. "Who are
we," she whispered, "to interfere in these sacred matters? It is of
souls, Mrs. Abbot, and not bodies, that the Kingdom of Heaven is
made."

I took a minute or so to get my breath, and then I said, "What
generally happens in these cases is that God afflicts the woman with
permanent barrenness."

The old lady bowed her head, and I saw the tears falling into her
lap. "My poor Sylvia!" she moaned, only half aloud.

There was a silence; I too almost wept. And finally, Aunt Varina
looked up at me, her faded eyes full of pleading. "It is hard for me
to understand such ideas as yours. You must tell me-can you really
believe that it would help Sylvia to know this-this dreadful
secret?"

"It would help her in many ways," I said. "She will be more careful
of her health-she will follow the doctor's orders---"

How quickly came the reply! "I will stay with her, and see that she
does that! I will be with her day and night."

"But are you going to keep the secret from those who attend her? Her
maid--the child's nurses--everyone who might by any chance use the
same towel, or a wash-basin, or a drinking-glass?"

"Surely you exaggerate the danger! If that were true, more people
would meet with these accidents!"

"The doctors," I said, "estimate that about ten per cent. of cases
of this disease are innocently acquired."

"Oh, these modern doctors!" she cried. "I never heard of such
ideas!"

I could not help smiling. "My dear Mrs. Tuis, what do you imagine
you know about the prevalence of gonorrhea? Consider just one
fact--that I heard a college professor state publicly that in his
opinion eighty-five per cent. of the men students at his university
were infected with some venereal disease. And that is the pick of
our young manhood--the sons of our aristocracy!"

"Oh, that can't be!" she exclaimed. "People would know of it!

"Who are 'people'? The boys in your family know of it--if you could
get them to tell you. My two sons studied at a State university, and
they would bring me home what they heard--the gossip, the slang, the
horrible obscenity. Fourteen fellows in one dormitory using the same
bathroom--and on the wall you saw a row of fourteen syringes! And
they told that on themselves, it was the joke of the campus. They
call the disease a 'dose'; and a man's not supposed to be worthy the
respect of his fellows until he's had his 'dose'--the sensible thing
is to get several, till he can't get any more. They think it's 'no
worse than a bad cold'; that's the idea they get from the
'clap-doctors,' and the women of the street who educate our sons in
sex matters."

"Oh, spare me, spare me!" cried Mrs. Tuis. "I beg you not to force
these horrible details upon me!"

"That is what is going on among our boys," I said. "The Castleman
boys, the Chilton boys! It's going on in every fraternity house,
every 'prep school' dormitory in America. And the parents refuse to
know, just as you do!"

"But what could I possibly do, Mrs. Abbott?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Tuis. What _I_ am going to do is to teach the
young girls."

She whispered, aghast, "You would rob the young girls of their
innocence. Why, with their souls full of these ideas their faces
would soon be as hard--oh, you horrify me!"

"My daughter's face is not hard," I said. "And I taught her. Stop
and think, Mrs. Tuis--ten thousand blind children every year! A
hundred thousand women under the surgeon's knife! Millions of women
going to pieces with slowly creeping diseases of which they never
hear the names! I say, let us cry this from the housetops, until
every woman knows--and until every man knows that she knows, and
that unless he can prove that he is clean he will lose her! That is
the remedy, Mrs. Tuis!"

Poor dear lady! I got up and went away, leaving her there, with
clenched hands and trembling lips. I suppose I seemed to her like
the mad women who were just then rising up to horrify the
respectability of England--a phenomenon of Nature too portentous to
be comprehended, or even to be contemplated, by a gentlewoman of the
South!

20. There came in due course a couple of letters from Douglas van
Tuiver. The one to Aunt Varina, which was shown to me, was vague and
cautious--as if the writer were uncertain how much this worthy lady
knew. He merely mentioned that Sylvia was to be spared every
particle of "painful knowledge." He would wait in great anxiety, but
he would not come, because any change in his plans might set her to
questioning.

The letter to Dr. Perrin was not shown to me; but I judged that it
must have contained more strenuous injunctions. Or had Aunt Varina
by any chance got up the courage to warn the young doctor against
me? His hints, at any rate, became more pointed. He desired me to
realize how awkward it would be for him, if Sylvia were to learn the
truth; it would be impossible to convince Mr. van Tuiver that this
knowledge had not come from the physician in charge.

"But, Dr. Perrin," I objected, "it was I who brought the information
to you! And Mr. van Tuiver knows that I am a radical woman; he would
not expect me to be ignorant of such matters."

"Mrs. Abbott," was the response, "it is a grave matter to destroy
the possibility of happiness of a young married couple."

However I might dispute his theories, in practice I was doing what
he asked. But each day I was finding the task more difficult; each
day it became more apparent that Sylvia was ceasing to believe me. I
realized at last, with a sickening kind of fright, that she knew I
was hiding something from her. Because she knew me, and knew that I
would not do such a thing lightly, she was terrified. She would lie
there, gazing at me, with a dumb fear in her eyes--and I would go on
asseverating blindly, like an unsuccessful actor before a jeering
audience.

A dozen times she made an effort to break through the barricade of
falsehood; and a dozen times I drove her back, all but crying to
her, "No, No! Don't ask me!" Until at last, late one night, she
caught my hand and clung to it in a grip I could not break. "Mary!
Mary! You must tell me the _truth!_"

"Dear girl--" I began.

"Listen!" she cried. "I know you are deceiving me! I know
why--because I'll make myself ill. But it won't do any longer; it's
preying on me, Mary--I've taken to imagining things. So you must
tell me the truth!"

I sat, avoiding her eyes, beaten; and in the pause I could feel her
hands shaking. "Mary, what is it? Is my baby going to die?"

"No, dear, indeed no!" I cried.

"Then what?"

"Sylvia," I began, as quietly as I could, "the truth is not as bad
as you imagine--"

"Tell me what it is!"

"But it is bad, Sylvia. And you must be brave. You must be, for your
baby's sake."

"Make haste!" she cried.

"The baby," I said, "may be blind."

"Blind!" There we sat, gazing into each other's eyes, like two
statues of women. But the grasp of her hand tightened, until even my
big fist was hurt. "Blind!" she whispered again.

"Sylvia," I rushed on, "it isn't so bad as it might be! Think--if
you had lost her altogether!"

"_Blind!_"

"You will have her always; and you can do things for her--take care
of her. They do wonders for the blind nowadays--and you have the
means; to do everything. Really, you know, blind children are not
unhappy--some of them are happier than other children, I think. They
haven't so much to miss. Think--"

"Wait, wait," she whispered; and again there was silence, and I
clung to her cold hands.

"Sylvia," I said, at last, "you have a newly-born infant to nurse,
and its very life depends upon your health now. You cannot let
yourself grieve."

"No," she responded. "No. But, Mary, what caused this?"

So there was the end of my spell of truth-telling. "I don't know,
dear. Nobody knows. There might be a thousand things--"

"Was it born blind?"

"No."

"Then was it the doctor's fault?"

"No, it was nobody's fault. Think of the thousands and tens of
thousands of babies that become blind! It's a dreadful accident that
happens." So I went on--possessed with a dread that had been with me
for days, that had kept me awake for hours in the night: Had I, in
any of my talks with Sylvia about venereal disease, mentioned
blindness in infants as one of the consequences? I could not
rememher; but now was the time I would find out!

She lay there, immovable, like a woman who had died in grief; until
at last I flung my arms about her and whispered, "Sylvia! Sylvia!
Please cry!"

"I can't cry!" she whispered, and her voice sounded hard.

So, after a space, I said, "Then, dear, I think I will have to make
you laugh."

"Laugh, Mary?"

"Yes-I will tell you about the quarrel between Aunt Varina and
myself. You know what times we've been having-how I shocked the poor
lady?"

She was looking at me, but her eyes were not seeing me. "Yes, Mary,"
she said, in the same dead tone.

"Well, that was a game we made for you. It was very funny!"

"Funny?"

"Yes! Because I really did shock her-though we started out just to
give you something else to think about!"

And then suddenly I saw the healing tears begin to come. She could
not weep for her own grief-but she could weep because of what she
knew we two had had to suffer for her!

21. I went out and told the others what I had done; and Mrs. Tuis
rushed in to her niece and they wept in each other's arms, and Mrs.
Tuis explained all the mysteries of life by her formula, "the will
of the Lord."

Later on came Dr. Perrin, and it was touching to see how Sylvia
treated him. She had, it appeared, conceived the idea that the
calamity must be due to some blunder on his part, and then she had
reflected that he was young, and that chance had thrown upon him a
responsibility for which he had not bargained. He must be
reproaching himself bitterly, so she had to persuade him that it was
really not so bad as we were making it-that a blind child was a
great joy to a mother's soul-in some ways even a greater joy than a
perfectly sound child, because it appealed so to her protective
instinct! I had called Sylvia a shameless payer of compliments, and
now I went away by myself and wept.

Yet it was true in a way. When the infant was brought in to be
nursed again, how she clung to it, a very picture of the sheltering
and protecting instinct of motherhood! She knew the worst now--her
mind was free, and she could partake of what happiness was allowed
her. The child was hers to love and care for, and she would find
ways to atone to it for the harshness of fate.

So little by little we got our existence upon a working basis. We
lived a peaceful, routine life, to the music of cocoanut-palms
rustling in the warm breezes which blew incessantly off the Mexican
Gulf. Aunt Varina had, for the time, her undisputed way with the
family; her niece reclined upon the veranda in true Southern lady
fashion, and was read aloud to from books of indisputable
respectability. I remember Aunt Varina selected the "Idylls of the
King," and they two were in a mood to shed tears over these solemn,
sorrowful tales. So it came that the little one got her name, after
a pale and unhappy heroine.

I remember the long discussions of this point, the family-lore which
Aunt Varina brought forth. It did not seem to her quite the thing to
call a blind child after a member of one's family. Something
strange, romantic, wistful--yes, Elaine was the name! Mrs. Tuis, it
transpired, had already baptised the infant, in the midst of the
agonies and alarms of its illness. She had called it "Sylvia," and
now she was tremulously uncertain whether this counted--whether
perhaps the higher powers might object to having to alter their
records. But in the end a clergyman came out from Key West and heard
Aunt Varina's confession, and gravely concluded that the error might
be corrected by a formal ceremony. How strange it all seemed to
me--being carried back two or three hundred years in the world's
history! But I gave no sign of what was going on in my rebellious
mind.

22. Dr. Overton on his return to New York, sent a special nurse to
take charge of Sylvia's case. There was also an infant's nurse, and
both had been taken into the doctor's confidence. So now there was
an elaborate conspiracy--no less than five women and two men, all
occupied in keeping a secret from Sylvia. It was a thing so contrary
to my convictions that I was never free from the burden of it for a
moment. Was it my duty to tell her?

Dr. Perrin no longer referred to the matter--I realised that both he
and Dr. Gibson considered the matter settled. Was it conceivable
that anyone of sound mind could set out, deliberately and in cold
blood, to betray such a secret? But I had maintained all my life the
right of woman to know the truth, and was I to back down now, at the
first test of my convictions?

When the news reached Douglas van Tuiver that his wife had been
informed of the infant's blindness, there came a telegram saying
that he was coming. There was much excitement, of course, and Aunt
Varina came to me, in an attempt to secure a definite pledge of
silence. When I refused it, Dr. Perrin came again, and we fought the
matter over for the better part of a day and night.

He was a polite little gentleman, and he did not tell me that my
views were those of a fanatic, but he said that no woman could see
things in their true proportion, because of her necessary ignorance
concerning the nature of men, and the temptations to which they were
exposed. I replied that I believed I understood these matters
thoroughly, and I went on, quite simply and honestly, to make clear
to him that this was so. In the end my pathetically chivalrous
little Southern gentleman admitted everything I asked. Yes, it was
true that these evils were ghastly, and that they were increasing,
and that women were the worst sufferers from men. There might even
be something in my idea that the older women of the community should
devote themselves to this service, making themselves race-mothers,
and helping, not merely in their homes, but in the schools and
churches, to protect and save the future generations. But all that
was in the future, he argued, while here was a case which had gone
so far that "letting in the light" could only blast the life of two
people, making it impossible for a young mother ever again to
tolerate the father of her child. I argued that Sylvia was not of
the hysterical type, but I could not make him agree that it was
possible to predict what the attitude of any woman would be. His
ideas were based on one peculiar experience he had had--a woman
patient who had said to him: "Doctor, I know what is the matter with
me, but for God's sake don't let my husband find out that I know,
because then I should feel that my self-respect required me to leave
him!"

23. The Master-of-the-House was coming! You could feel the quiver of
excitement in the air of the place. The boatmen were polishing the
brasses of the launch; the yard-man was raking up the dry strips of
palm from beneath the cocoanut trees; Aunt Varina was ordering new
supplies, and entering into conspiracies with the cook. The nurses
asked me timidly, what was He like, and even Dr. Gibson, a testy old
gentleman who had clashed violently with me on the subject of
woman's suffrage, and had avoided me ever since as a suspicious
character, now came and confided his troubles. He had sent home for
a trunk, and the graceless express companies had sent it astray. Now
he was wondering if it was necessary for him to journey to Key West
and have a suit of dinner clothes made over night. I told him that I
had not sent for any party-dresses, and that I expected to meet Mr.
Douglas van Tuiver at his dinner-table in plain white linen. His
surprise was so great that I suspected the old gentleman of having
wondered whether I meant to retire to a "second-table" when the
Master-of-the-House arrived.

I went away by myself, seething with wrath. Who was this great one
whom we honoured? Was he an inspired poet, a maker of laws, a
discoverer of truth? He was the owner of an indefinite number of
millions of dollars--that was all, and yet I was expected, because
of my awe of him, to abandon the cherished convictions of my
lifetime. The situation was one that challenged my fighting blood.
This was the hour to prove whether I really meant the things I
talked.

On the morning of the day that van Tuiver was expected, I went early
to Aunt Varina's room. She was going in the launch, and was in a
state of flustration, occupied in putting on her best false hair.
"Mrs. Tuis," I said, "I want you to let me go to meet Mr. van Tuiver
instead of you."

I will not stop to report the good lady's outcries. I did not care,
I said, whether it was proper, nor did I care whether, as she
finally hinted, it might not be agreeable to Mr. van Tuiver. I was
sorry to have to thrust myself upon him, but I was determined to go,
and would let nothing prevent me. And all at once she yielded,
rather surprising me by the suddenness of it. I suppose she
concluded that van Tuiver was the man to handle me, and the quicker
he got at it the better.

It is a trying thing to deal with the rich and great. If you treat
them as the rest of the world does, you are a tuft-hunter; if you
treat them as the rest of the world pretends to, you are a
hypocrite; whereas, if you deal with them truly, it is hard not to
seem, even to yourself, a bumptious person. I remember trying to
tell myself on the launch-trip that I was not in the least excited;
and then, standing on the platform of the railroad station, saying:
"How can you expect not to be excited, when even the railroad is
excited?"

"Will Mr. van Tuiver's train be on time?" I asked, of the agent.

"'Specials' are not often delayed," he replied, "at least, not Mr.
van Tuiver's."

The engine and its two cars drew up, and the traveller stepped out
upon the platform, followed by his secretary and his valet. I went
forward to meet him. "Good morning, Mr. van Tuiver."

I saw at once that he did not remember me. "Mrs. Abbott," I
prompted. "I came to meet you."

"Ah," he said. He had never got clear whether I was a sewing-woman,
or a tutor, or what, and whenever he erred in such matters, it was
on the side of caution.

"Your wife is doing well," I said, "and the child as well as could
be expected."

"Thank you," he said. "Did no one else come?"

"Mrs. Tuis was not able," I said, diplomatically, and we moved
towards the launch.

24. He did not offer to help me into the vessel, but I, crude
Western woman, did not miss the attention. We seated ourselves in
the upholstered leather seats in the stern, and when the "luggage"
had been stowed aboard, the little vessel swung away from the pier.
Then I said: "If you will pardon me, Mr. van Tuiver, I should like
to talk with you privately."

He looked at me for a moment, and then answered, abruptly: "Yes,
madam." The secretary rose and went forward.

The whirr of the machinery and the strong breeze made by the boat's
motion, made it certain that no one could hear us, and so I began my
attack: "Mr. van Tuiver, I am a friend of your wife's. I came here
to help her in this crisis, and I came to-day to meet you because it
was necessary for someone to talk to you frankly about the
situation. You will understand, I presume, that Mrs. Tuis is not--
not very well informed about the matters in question."

His gaze was fixed intently upon me, but he said not a word. After
waiting, I continued: "Perhaps you will wonder why your wife's
physicians could not have handled the matter. The reason is, there
is a woman's side to such questions and often it is difficult for
men to understand it. If Sylvia knew the truth, she could speak for
herself; so long as she does not know it, I shall have to take the
liberty of speaking for her."

Again there was a pause. He did nothing more than watch me, yet I
could feel his affronted maleness rising up for battle. I waited on
purpose to compel him to speak.

"May I ask," he inquired, at last, "what you mean by the 'truth'
that you refer to?"

"I mean," I said, "the cause of the infant's affliction."

His composure was a thing to wonder at. He did not show by the
flicker of an eyelash any sign of uneasiness.

"Let me explain one thing," I continued. "I owe it to Dr. Perrin to
make clear that he had nothing whatever to do with my coming into
possession of the secret. In fact, as he will no doubt tell you, I
knew it before he did; it is possible that you owe it to me that the
infant is not disfigured as well as blind."

I paused again. "If that be true," he said, with unshaken formality,
"I am obliged to you." What a man!

I continued: "My one desire and purpose is to protect my friend. So
far, the secret has been kept from her. I consented to this, because
her very life was at stake, it seemed to us all. But now she is well
enough to know, and the question is SHALL she know. I need hardly
tell you that Dr. Perrin thinks she should not, and that he has been
using his influence to persuade me to agree with him; so also has
Mrs. Tuis----"

Then I saw the first trace of uncertainty in his eyes. "There was a
critical time," I explained, "when Mrs. Tuis had to be told. You may
be sure, however, that no hint of the truth will be given by her. I
am the only person who is troubled with the problem of Sylvia's
rights."

I waited. "May I suggest, Mrs.--Mrs. Abbott--that the protection of
Mrs. van Tuiver's rights can be safely left to her physicians and
her husband?"

"One would wish so, Mr. van Tuiver, but the medical books are full
of evidence that women's rights frequently need other protection."

I perceived that he was nearing the end of his patience now. "You
make it difficult for me to talk to you," he said. "I am not
accustomed to having my affairs taken out of my hands by strangers."

"Mr. van Tuiver," I replied, "in this most critical matter it is
necessary to speak without evasion. Before her marriage Sylvia made
an attempt to safeguard herself in this very matter, and she was not
dealt with fairly."

At last I had made a hole in the mask! His face was crimson as he
replied: "Madam, your knowledge of my private affairs is most
astonishing. May I inquire how you learned these things?"

I did not reply at once, and he repeated the question. I perceived
that this was to him the most important matter--his wife's lack of
reserve!

"The problem that concerns us here," I said, "is whether you are
willing to repair the error you made. Will you go frankly to your
wife and admit your responsibility----"

He broke in, angrily: "Madam, the assumption you are making is one I
see no reason for permitting."

"Mr. van Tuiver," said I, "I hoped that you would not take that line
of argument. I perceive that I have been _naive._"

"Really, madam!" he replied, with cruel intent, "you have not
impressed me so!"

I continued unshaken: "In this conversation it will be necessary to
assume that you are responsible for the presence of the disease."

"In that case," he replied, haughtily, "I can have no further part
in the conversation, and I will ask you to drop it at once."

I might have taken him at his word and waited, confident that in the
end he would have to come and ask for terms. But that would have
seemed childish to me, with the grave matters we had to settle.
After a minute or two, I said, quietly: "Mr. van Tuiver, you wish me
to believe that previous to your marriage you had always lived a
chaste life?"

He was equal to the effort it cost to control himself. He sat
examining me with his cold grey eyes. I suppose I must have been as
new and monstrous a phenomenon to him as he was to me.

At last, seeing that he would not reply, I said, coldly: "It will
help us to get forward if you will give up the idea that it is
possible for you to put me off, or to escape this situation."

"Madam," he cried, suddenly, "come to the point! What is it that you
want? Money?"

I had thought I was prepared for everything; but this was an aspect
of his world which I could hardly have been expected to allow for. I
stared at him and then turned from the sight of him. "And to think
that Sylvia is married to such a man!" I whispered, half to myself.

"Mrs. Abbott," he exclaimed, "how can anyone understand what you are
driving at?"

But I turned away without answering, and for a long time sat gazing
over the water. What was the use of pleading with such a man? What
was the use of pouring out one's soul to him? I would tell Sylvia
the truth at once, and leave him to her!

25. I heard him again, at last; he was talking to my back, his tone
a trifle less aloof. "Mrs. Abbott, do you realize that I know
nothing whatever about you--your character, your purpose, the nature
of your hold upon my wife? So what means have I of judging? You
threaten me with something that seems to me entirely insane--and
what can I make of it? If you wish me to understand you, tell me in
plain words what you want."

I reflected that I was in the world, and must take it as I found it.
"I have told you what I want," I said; "but I will tell you again,
if it is necessary. I hoped to persuade you that it was your duty to
go to your wife and tell her the truth."

He took a few moments to make sure of his self-possession. "And
would you explain what good you imagine that could do?"

"Your wife," I said, "must be put in position to protect herself in
future. There is no means of making sure in such a matter, except to
tell her the truth. You love her--and you are a man who has never
been accustomed to do without what he wants."

"Great God, woman!" he cried. "Don't you suppose one blind child is
enough?"

It was the first human word that he had spoken, and I was grateful
for it. "I have already covered that point," I said, in a low voice.
"The medical books are full of painful evidence that several blind
children are often not enough. There can be no escaping the
necessity--Sylvia must _know._ The only question is, who shall tell
her? You must realize that in urging you to be the person, I am
thinking of your good as well as hers. I will, of course, not
mention that I have had anything to do with persuading you, and so
it will seem to her that you have some realization of the wrong you
have done her, some desire to atone for it, and to be honourable and
fair in your future dealings with her. When she has once been made
to realize that you are no more guilty than other men of your
class--hat you have done no worse than all of them----

"You imagine she could be made to believe that?" he broke in,
impatiently.

"I will undertake to see that she believes it," I replied.

"You seem to have great confidence in your ability to manage my
wife!"

"If you continue to resent my existence," I answered, gravely, "you
will make it impossible for me to help you."

"Pardon me," he said--but he did not say it cordially.

I went on: "There is much that can be said in your behalf. I realize
it is quite possible that you were not wholly to blame when you
wrote to Bishop Chilton that you were fit to marry; I know that you
may have believed it--that you might even have found physicians to
tell you so. There is wide-spread ignorance on the subject of this
disease. Men have the idea that the chronic forms of it cannot be
communicated to women, and it is difficult to make them realize what
modern investigations have proven. You can explain that to Sylvia,
and I will back you up in it. You were in love with her, you wanted
her. Go to her now, and admit to her honestly that you have wronged
her. Beg her to forgive you, and to let you help make the best of
the cruel situation that has arisen."

So I went on, pouring out my soul. And when I had finished, he said,
"Mrs. Abbott, I have listened patiently to your most remarkable
proposition. My answer is that I must ask you to withdraw from this
intimate matter, which concerns only my wife and myself."

He was back where we started! Trying to sweep aside these grim and
terrible realities with the wave of a conventional hand! Was this
the way he met Sylvia's arguments? I felt moved to tell him what I
thought of him.

"You are a proud man, Mr. van Tuiver--an obstinate man, I fear. It
is hard for you to humble yourself to your wife--to admit a crime
and beg forgiveness. Tell me--is that why you hesitate? Is it
because you fear you will have to take second place in your family
from now on--that you will no longer be able to dominate Sylvia?
Are you afraid of putting into her hands a weapon of self-defence?"

He made no response.

"Very well," I said, at last. "Let me tell you, then--I will not
help any man to hold such a position in a woman's life. Women have
to bear half the burdens of marriage, they pay half, or more than
half, the penalties; and so it is necessary that they have a voice
in its affairs. Until they know the truth, they can never have a
voice."

Of course my little lecture on Feminism might as well have been
delivered to a sphinx. "How stupid you are!" I cried. "Don't you know
that some day Sylvia must find out the truth for herself?"

This was before the days when newspapers and magazines began to
discuss such matters frankly; but still there were hints to be
picked up. I had a newspaper-item in my bag--the board of health in
a certain city had issued a circular giving instructions for the
prevention of blindness in newly-born infants, and discussing the
causes thereof; and the United States post office authorities had
barred the circular from the mails. I said, "Suppose that item had
come under Sylvia's eyes; might it not have put her on the track. It
was in her newspaper the day before yesterday; and it was only by
accident that I got hold of it first. Do you suppose that can go on
forever?"

"Now that I am here," he replied, "I will be glad to relieve you of
such responsibilities."

Which naturally made me cross. I drew from my quiver an arrow that I
thought would penetrate his skin. "Mr. van Tuiver," I said, "a man
in your position must always be an object of gossip and scandal.
Suppose some enemy were to send your wife an anonymous letter? Or
suppose there were some woman who thought that you had wronged her?"

I stopped. He gave me one keen look--and then again the impenetrable
mask! "My wife will have to do as other women in her position
do--pay no attention to scandal-mongers of any sort."

I paused, and then went on: "I believe in marriage. I consider it a
sacred thing; I would do anything in my power to protect and
preserve a marriage. But I hold that it must be an equal
partnership. I would fight to make it that; and wherever I found
that it could not be that, I would say it was not marriage, but
slavery, and I would fight just as hard to break it. Can you not
understand that attitude upon a woman's part?"

He gave no sign that he could understand. But still I would not give
up my battle. "Mr. van Tuiver," I pleaded, "I am a much older person
than you. I have seen a great deal of life--I have seen suffering
even worse than yours. And I am trying most earnestly to help you.
Can you not bring yourself to talk to me frankly? Perhaps you have
never talked with a woman about such matters--I mean, with a good
woman. But I assure you that other men have found it possible, and
never regretted the confidence they placed in me."

I went on to tell him about my own sons, and what I had done for
them; I told him of a score of other boys in their class who had
come to me, making me a sort of mother-confessor. I do not think
that I was entirely deceived by my own eloquence--there was, I am
sure, a minute or two when he actually wavered. But then the habits
of a precocious life-time reasserted themselves, and he set his lips
and told himself that he was Douglas van Tuiver. Such things might
happen in raw Western colleges, but they were not according to the
Harvard manner, nor the tradition of life in Fifth Avenue clubs.

He could not be a boy! He had never had any boyhood, any
childhood--he had been a state personage ever since he had known
that he was anything. I found myself thinking suddenly of the
thin-lipped old family lawyer, who had had much to do with shaping
his character, and whom Sylvia described to me, sitting at her
dinner-table and bewailing the folly of people who "admitted
things." That was what made trouble for family lawyers--not what
people did, but what they admitted. How easy it was to ignore
impertinent questions! And how few people had the wit to do it!-it
seemed as if the shade of the thin-lipped old family lawyer were
standing by Douglas van Tuiver's side.

In a last desperate effort, I cried, "Even suppose that I grant your
request, even suppose I agree not to tell Sylvia the truth--still
the day will come when you will hear from her the point-blank
question: 'Is my child blind because of this disease?' And what will
you answer?"

He said, in his cold, measured tones, "I will answer that there are
a thousand ways in which the disease can be innocently acquired."

For a long time there was silence between us. At last he spoke
again, and his voice was as emotionless as if we had just met: "Do I
understand you, madam, that if I reject your advice and refuse to
tell my wife what you call the truth, it is your intention to tell
her yourself?"

"You understand me correctly," I replied.

"And may I ask when you intend to carry out this threat?"

"I will wait," I said, "I will give you every chance to think it
over--to consult with the doctors, in case you wish to. I will not
take the step without giving you fair notice."

"For that I am obliged to you," he said, with a touch of irony; and
that was our last word.

26. Our island was visible in the distance and I was impatient for
the time when I should be free from this man's presence. But as we
drew nearer, I noticed a boat coming out; it proved to be one of the
smaller launches heading directly for us. Neither van Tuiver nor I
spoke, but both of us watched it, and he must have been wondering,
as I was, what its purpose could be. When it was near enough, I made
out that its passengers were Dr. Perrin and Dr. Gibson.

We slowed up, and the other boat did the same, and they lay within a
few feet of each other. Dr. Perrin greeted van Tuiver, and after
introducing the other man, he said: "We came out to have a talk with
you. Would you be so good as to step into this boat?"

"Certainly," was the reply. The two launches were drawn side by
side, and the transfer made; the man who was running the smaller
launch stepped into ours--evidently having been instructed in
advance.

"You will excuse us please?" said the little doctor to me. The man
who had stepped into our launch spoke to the captain of it, and the
power was then put on, and we moved away a sufficient distance to be
out of hearing. I thought this a strange procedure, but I
conjectured that the doctors had become nervous as to what I might
have told van Tuiver. So I dismissed the matter from my mind, and
spent my time reviewing the exciting adventure I had just passed
through.

How much impression had I made? It was hard for me to judge such a
man. He would pretend to be less concerned than he actually was. But
surely he must see that he was in my power, and would have to give
way in the end!

There came a hail from the little vessel, and we moved alongside
again. "Would you kindly step in here with us, Mrs. Abbott?" said
Dr. Perrin, and when I had done so, he ordered the boatman to move
away once more. Van Tuiver said not a word, but I noted a strained
look upon his face, and I thought the others seemed agitated also.

As soon as the other vessel was out of hearing, Dr. Perrin turned to
me and said: "Mrs. Abbott, we came out to see Mr. van Tuiver, to
warn him of a distressing accident which has just happened. Mrs. van
Tuiver was asleep in her room, and Miss Lyman and another of the
nurses were in the next room. They indiscreetly made some remarks on
the subject which we have all been discussing--how much a wife
should be told about these matters, and suddenly they discovered
Mrs. van Tuiver standing in the doorway of the room."

My gaze had turned to Douglas van Tuiver. "So she _knows!_" I cried.

"We don't think that she knows, but she has a suspicion and is
trying to find out. She asked to see you."

"Ah, yes!" I said.

"She declared that she wished to see you as soon as you
returned--that she would not see anyone else, not even Mr. van
Tuiver. You will understand that this portends trouble for all of
us. We judged it necessary to have a consultation about the matter."

I bowed in assent.

"Now, Mrs. Abbot," began the little doctor, solemnly, "there is no
longer a question of abstract ideas, but of an immediate emergency.
We feel that we, as the physicians in charge of the case, have the
right to take control of the matter. We do not see----"

"Dr. Perrin," I said, "let us come to the point. You want me to spin
a new web of deception?"

"We are of the opinion, Mrs. Abbott, that in such matters the
physicians in charge----"

"Excuse me," I said, quickly, "we have been over all this before,
and we know that we disagree. Has Mr. van Tuiver told you of the
proposition I have just made?"

"You mean for him to go to his wife----"

"Yes."

"He has told us of this, and has offered to do it. We are of the
opinion that it would be a grave mistake."

"It has been three weeks since the birth of the baby," I said.
"Surely all danger of fever is past. I will grant you that if it
were a question of telling her deliberately, it might be better to
put it off for a while. I would have been willing to wait for
months, but for the fact that I dreaded something like the present
situation. Now that it has happened, surely it is best to use our
opportunity while all of us are here and can persuade her to take
the kindest attitude towards her husband."

"Madam!" broke in Dr. Gibson. (He was having difficulty in
controlling his excitement.) "You are asking us to overstep the
bounds of our professional duty. It is not for the physician to
decide upon the attitude a wife should take toward her husband."

"Dr. Gibson," I replied, "that is what you propose to do, only you
wish to conceal the fact. You would force Mrs. van Tuiver to accept
your opinion of what a wife's duty is."

Dr. Perrin took command once more. "Our patient has asked for you,
and she looks to you for guidance. You must put aside your own
convictions and think of her health. You are the only person who can
calm her, and surely it is your duty to do so!"

"I know that I might go in and lie again to my friend, but she knows
too much to be deceived for very long. You know what a mind she
has--a lawyer's mind! How can I persuade her that the nurses--why, I
do not even know what she heard the nurses say!"

"We have that all written down for you," put in Dr. Perrin, quickly.

"You have their recollection of it, no doubt--but suppose they have
forgotten some of it? Sylvia has not forgotten, you may be
sure--every word is burned with fire into her brain. She has put
with this everything she ever heard on the subject--the experience
of her friend, Harriet Atkinson-all that I've told her in the past
about such things----"

"Ah!" growled Dr. Gibson. "That's it! If you had not meddled in the
beginning----"

"Now, now!" said the other, soothingly. "You ask me to relieve you
of the embarrassment of this matter. I quite agree with Mrs. Abbott
that there is too much ignorance about these things, but she must
recognise, I am sure, that this is not the proper moment for
enlightening Mrs. van Tuiver."

"I do not recognise it at all," I said. "If her husband will go to
her and tell her humbly and truthfully----"

"You are talking madness!" cried the old man, breaking loose again.
"She would be hysterical--she would regard him as something
loathsome--some kind of criminal----"

"Of course she would be shocked," I said, "but she has the coolest
head of anyone I know--I do not think of any man I would trust so
fully to take a rational attitude in the end. We can explain to her
what extenuating circumstances there are, and she will have to
recognise them. She will see that we are considering her rights----"

"Her _rights!_" The old man fairly snorted the words.

"Now, now, Dr. Gibson!" interposed the other. "You asked me----"

"I know! I know! But as the older of the physicians in charge of
this case----"

Dr. Perrin managed to frown him down, and went on trying to placate
me. But through the argument I could hear the old man muttering in
his collar a kind of double bass _pizzicato_: "Suffragettes!
Fanatics! Hysteria! Woman's Rights!"

27. The breeze was feeble, and the sun was blazing hot, but
nevertheless I made myself listen patiently for a while. They had
said it all to me, over and over again; but it seemed that Dr.
Perrin could not be satisfied until it had been said in Douglas van
Tuiver's presence.

"Dr. Perrin," I exclaimed, "even supposing we make the attempt to
deceive her, we have not one plausible statement to make----"

"You are mistaken, Mrs. Abbott," said he. "We have the perfectly
well-known fact that this disease is often contracted in ways which
involve no moral blame. And in this case I believe I am in position
to state how the accident happened."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know whether you heard that just before Mrs. van Tuiver's
confinement, I was called away to one of the other keys to attend a
negro-woman. And since this calamity has befallen us, I have
realized that I was possibly not as careful in sterilizing my
instruments as I might have been. It is of course a dreadful thing
for any physician to have to believe----"

He stopped, and there was a long silence. I gazed from one to
another of the men. Two of them met my gaze; one did not. "He is
going to let you say that?" I whispered, at last.

"Honour and fairness compel me to say it, Mrs. Abbott. I
believe----"

But I interrupted him. "Listen to me, Dr. Perrin. You are a
chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in
desperate need. But I say that anyone who would permit you to tell
such a tale is a contemptible coward!"

"Madam," cried Dr. Gibson, furiously, "there is a limit even to a
woman's rights!"

A silence followed. At last I resumed, in a low voice, "You
gentlemen have your code: you protect the husband--you protect him
at all hazards. I could understand this, if he were innocent of the
offence in question; I could understand it if there were any
possibility of his being innocent. But how can you protect him, when
you know that he is guilty?"

"There can be no question of such knowledge!" cried the old doctor.

"I have no idea," I said, "how much he has admitted to you; but let
me remind you of one circumstance, which is known to Dr.
Perrin--that I came to this place with the definite information that
symptoms of the disease were to be anticipated. Dr. Perrin knows
that I told that to Dr. Overton in New York. Has he informed you of
it?"

There was an awkward interval. I glanced at van Tuiver, and I saw
that he was leaning forward, staring at me. I thought he was about
to speak, when Dr. Gibson broke in, excitedly, "All this is beside
the mark! We have a serious emergency to face, and we are not
getting anywhere. As the older of the physicians in charge of this
case----"

And he went on to give me a lecture on the subject of authority. He
talked for five minutes, ten minutes--I lost all track of the time.
I had suddenly begun to picture how I would act and what I would say
when I went into Sylvia's room. What a state must Sylvia be in,
while we sat out here in the blazing mid-day sun, discussing her
right to freedom and knowledge!

28. "I have always been positive," Dr. Gibson was saying, "but the
present discussion has made me more positive than ever. As the older
of the physicians in charge of this case, I say most emphatically
that the patient shall not be told!"

I could not stand him any longer. "I am going to tell the patient,"
I said.

"You shall _not_ tell her!"

"But how will you prevent me?"

"You shall not _see_ her!"

"But she is determined to see _me!_"

"She will be told that you are not there."

"And how long do you imagine that that will satisfy her?"

There was a pause. They looked at van Tuiver, expecting him to
speak. And so I heard once more his cold, deliberate voice. "We have
done all we can. There can no longer be any question as to the
course to be taken. Mrs. Abbott will not return to my home."

"What?" I cried. I stared at him, aghast. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say--that you will not be taken back to the island."

"But where will I be taken?"

"You will be taken to the mainland."

I stared at the others. No one gave a sign. At last I whispered,
"You would _dare?_"

"You leave us no other alternative," replied the master.

"You--you will practically kidnap me!" My voice must have been
rather wild at that moment.

"You left my home of your own free will. I think I need hardly point
out to you that I am not compelled to invite you back to it."

"And what will Sylvia----" I stopped; appalled at the vista the
words opened up.

"My wife," said van Tuiver, "will ultimately choose between her
husband and her most remarkable acquaintance."

"And you gentlemen?" I turned to the others. "You would give your
sanction to this outrageous action?"

"As the older of the physicians in charge of this case----" began
Dr. Gibson.

I turned to van Tuiver again. "When your wife finds out what you
have done to me--what will you answer?"

"We will deal with that situation when we come to it."

"Of course," I said, "you understand that sooner or later I shall
get word to her!"

He answered, "We shall assume from now on that you are a mad woman,
and shall take our precautions accordingly."

Again there was a silence.

"The launch will return to the mainland," said van Tuiver at last.
"It will remain there until Mrs. Abbott sees fit to go ashore. May I
ask if she has sufficient money in her purse to take her to New
York?"

I could not help laughing. The thing was so wild--and yet I could
see that from their point of view it was the only thing to do. "Mrs.
Abbott is not certain that she is going back to New York," I
replied. "If she does go, it will not be with Mr. van Tuiver's
money."

"One thing more," said Dr. Perrin. It was the first time he had
spoken since van Tuiver's incredible announcement. "I trust, Mrs.
Abbott, that this unfortunate situation may at all costs be
concealed from servants, and from the world in general."

From which I realized how badly I had them frightened. They actually
saw me making physical resistance!

"Dr. Perrin," I replied, "I am acting in this matter for my friend.
I will add this: that I believe that you are letting yourself be
overborne, and that you will regret it some day."

He made no answer. Douglas van Tuiver put an end to the discussion
by rising and signalling the other launch. When it had come
alongside, he said to the captain, "Mrs. Abbott is going back to the
railroad. You will take her at once."

Then he waited; I was malicious enough to give him an anxious moment
before I rose. Dr. Perrin offered me his hand; and Dr. Gibson said,
with a smile, "Good-bye, Mrs. Abbott. I'm sorry you can't stay with
us any longer."

I think it was something to my credit that I was able to play out
the game before the boatmen. "I am sorry, too," I countered. "I am
hoping I shall be able to return."

And then came the real ordeal. "Good-bye, Mrs. Abbott," said Douglas
van Tuiver, with his stateliest bow; and I managed to answer him!

As I took my seat, he beckoned his secretary. There was a whispered
consultation for a minute or two, and then the master returned to
the smaller launch with the doctors. He gave the word, and the two
vessels set out--one to the key, and the other to the railroad. The
secretary went in the one with me!

29. And here ends a certain stage of my story. I have described
Sylvia as I met her and judged her; and if there be any reader who
has been irked by this method, who thinks of me as a crude and
pushing person, disposed to meddle in the affairs of others, here is
where that reader will have his satisfaction and revenge. For if
ever a troublesome puppet was jerked suddenly off the stage--if ever
a long-winded orator was effectively snuffed out--I was that puppet
and that orator. I stop and think--shall I describe how I paced up
and down the pier, respectfully but emphatically watched by the
secretary? And all the melodramatic plots I conceived, the muffled
oars and the midnight visits to my Sylvia? My sense of humour
forbids it. For a while now I shall take the hint and stay in the
background of this story. I shall tell the experiences of Sylvia as
Sylvia herself told them to me long afterwards; saying no more about
my own fate--save that I swallowed my humiliation and took the next
train to New York, a far sadder and wiser social-reformer!


BOOK III

SYLVIA AS REBEL


1. Long afterwards Sylvia told me about what happened between her
husband and herself; how desperately she tried to avoid discussing
the issue with him--out of her very sense of fairness to him. But he
came to her room, in spite of her protest, and by his implacable
persistence he made her hear what he had to say. When he had made up
his mind to a certain course of action, he was no more to be
resisted than a glacier.

"Sylvia," he said, "I know that you are upset by what has happened.
I make every allowance for your condition; but there are some
statements that I must be permitted to make, and there are simply no
two ways about it--you must get yourself together and hear me."

"Let me see Mary Abbott!" she insisted, again and again. "It may not
be what you want--but I demand to see her."

So at last he said, "You cannot see Mrs. Abbott. She has gone back
to New York." And then, at her look of consternation: "That is one
of the things I have to talk to you about."

"Why has she gone back?" cried Sylvia.

"Because I was unwilling to have her here."

"You mean you sent her away?"

"I mean that she understood she was no longer welcome."

Sylvia drew a quick breath and turned away to the window.

He took advantage of the opportunity to come near, and draw up a
chair for her. "Will you not pleased to be seated," he said. And at
last she turned, rigidly, and seated herself.

"The time has come," he declared, "when we have to settle this
question of Mrs. Abbott, and her influence upon your life. I have
argued with you about such matters, but now what has happened makes
further discussion impossible. You were brought up among people of
refinement, and it has been incredible to me that you should be
willing to admit to your home such a woman as this--not merely of
the commonest birth, but without a trace of the refinement to which
you have been accustomed. And now you see the consequences of your
having brought such a person into our life!"

He paused. She made no sound, and her gaze was riveted upon the
window-curtain.

"She happens to be here," he went on, "at a time when a dreadful
calamity befalls us--when we are in need of the utmost sympathy and
consideration. Here is an obscure and terrible affliction, which has
baffled the best physicians in the country; but this ignorant
farmer's wife considers that she knows all about it. She proceeds to
discuss it with every one--sending your poor aunt almost into
hysterics, setting the nurses to gossiping--God knows what else she
has done, or what she will do, before she gets through. I don't
pretend to know her ultimate purpose--blackmail, possibly----"

"Oh, how can you!" she broke out, involuntarily. "How can you say
such a thing about a friend of mine?"

"I might answer with another question--how can you have such a
friend? A woman who has cast off every restraint, every
consideration of decency--and yet is able to persuade a daughter of
the Castlemans to make her an intimate! Possibly she is an honest
fanatic. Dr. Perrin tells me she was the wife of a brutal farmer,
who mistreated her. No doubt that has embittered her against men,
and accounts for her mania. You see that her mind leaped at once to
the most obscene and hideous explanation of this misfortune of
ours--an explanation which pleased her because it blackened the
honour of a man."

He stopped again. Sylvia's eyes had moved back to the
window-curtain.

"I am not going to insult your ears," he said, "with discussions of
her ideas. The proper person to settle such matters is a physician,
and if you wish Dr. Perrin to do so, he will tell you what he knows
about the case. But I wish you to realize somehow what this thing
has meant to me. I have managed to control myself----" He saw her
shut her lips more tightly. "The doctors tell me that I must not
excite you. But picture the situation. I come to my home, bowed down
with grief for you and for my child. And this mad woman thrusts
herself forward, shoves aside your aunt and your physicians, and
comes in the launch to meet me at the station. And then she accuses
me of being criminally guilty of the blindness of my child--of
having wilfully deceived my wife! Think of it--that is my welcome to
my home!"

"Douglas," she cried, wildly, "Mary Abbott would not have done such
a thing without reason----"

"I do not purpose to defend myself," he said, coldly. "If you are
bent upon filling your mind with such matters, go to Dr. Perrin. He
will tell you that he, as a physician, knows that the charge against
me is preposterous. He will tell you that even granting that the
cause of the blindness is what Mrs. Abbott guesses, there are a
thousand ways in which such an infection can be contracted, which
are perfectly innocent, involving no guilt on the part of anyone.
Every doctor knows that drinking-cups, wash-basins, towels, even
food, can be contaminated. He knows that any person can bring the
affliction into a home--servants, nurses, even the doctors
themselves. Has your mad woman friend told you any of that?"

"She has told me nothing. You know that I have had no opportunity to
talk with her. I only know what the nurses believe----"

"They believe what Mrs. Abbott told them. That is absolutely all the
reason they have for believing anything!"

She did not take that quite as he expected. "So Mary Abbott _did_
tell them!" she cried.

He hurried on: "The poisonous idea of a vulgar Socialist woman--this
is the thing upon which you base your suspicions of your husband!"

"Oh!" she whispered, half to herself. "Mary Abbott _did_ say it!"

"What if she did?"

"Oh, Douglas, Mary would never have said such a thing to a nurse
unless she had been certain of it!"

"Certain?" he broke out. "What certainty could she imagine she had?
She is a bitter, frantic woman--a divorced woman--who jumped to the
conclusion that pleased her, because it involved the humiliation of
a rich man."

He went on, his voice trembling with suppressed passion: "When you
know the real truth, the thing becomes a nightmare. You, a delicate
woman, lying here helpless--the victim of a cruel misfortune, and
with the life of an afflicted infant depending upon your peace of
mind. Your physicians planning day and night to keep you quiet, to
keep the dreadful, unbearable truth from you----"

"Oh, what truth? That's the terrifying thing--to know that people
are keeping things from me! What _was_ it they were keeping?"

"First of all, the fact that the baby was blind; and then the cause
of it----"

"Then they _do_ know the cause?"

"They don't know positively--no one can know positively. But poor
Dr. Perrin had a dreadful idea, that he had to hide from you because
otherwise he could not bear to continue in your house----"

"Why, Douglas! What do you mean?"

"I mean that a few days before your confinement, he was called away
to the case of a negro-woman--you knew that, did you not?"

"Go on."

"He had the torturing suspicion that possibly he was not careful
enough in sterilizing his instruments, and that he, your friend and
protector, may be the man who is to blame."

"Oh! Oh!" Her voice was a whisper of horror.

"That is one of the secrets your doctors have been trying to hide."

There was silence, while her eyes searched his face. Suddenly she
stretched out her hands to him, crying desperately: "Oh, is this
true?"

He did not take the outstretched hands. "Since I am upon the
witness-stand, I have to be careful of my replies. It is what Dr.
Perrin tells me. Whether the explanation he gives is the true
one--whether he himself, or the nurse he recommended, may have
brought the infection----"

"It couldn't have been the nurse," she said quickly. "She was so
careful----"

He did not allow her to finish. "You seem determined," he said,
coldly, "to spare everyone but your husband."

"No!" she protested, "I have tried hard to be fair--to be fair to
both you and my friend. Of course, if Mary Abbott was mistaken, I
have done you a great injustice--"

He saw that she was softening, and that it was safe for him to be a
man. "It has been with some difficulty that I have controlled myself
throughout this experience," he said, rising to his feet. "If you do
not mind, I think I will not carry the discussion any further, as I
don't feel that I can trust myself to listen to a defence of that
woman from your lips. I will only tell you my decision in the
matter. I have never before used my authority as a husband; I hoped
I should never have to use it. But the time has come when you will
have to choose between Mary Abbott and your husband. I will
positively not tolerate your corresponding with her, or having
anything further to do with her. I take my stand upon that, and
nothing will move me. I will not even permit of any discussion of
the subject. And now I hope you will excuse me. Dr. Perrin wishes me
to tell you that either he or Dr. Gibson are ready at any time to
advise you about these matters, which have been forced upon your
mind against their judgment and protests."

2. You can see that it was no easy matter for Sylvia to get at the
truth. The nurses, already terrified because of their indiscretion,
had been first professionally thrashed, and then carefully drilled
as to the answers they were to make. But as a matter of fact they
did not have to make any answers at all, because Sylvia was
unwilling to reveal to anyone her distrust of her husband.

One of two things was certain: either she had been horribly wronged
by her husband, or now she was horribly wronging him. Which was the
truth? Was it conceivable that I, Mary Abbott, would leap to a false
conclusion about such a matter? She knew that I felt intensely,
almost fanatically, on the subject, and also that I had been under
great emotional stress. Was it possible that I would have voiced
mere suspicions to the nurses? Sylvia could not be sure, for my
standards were as strange to her as my Western accent. She knew that
I talked freely to everyone about such matters--and would be as apt
to select the nurses as the ladies of the house. On the other hand,
how was it conceivable that I could know positively? To recognize a
disease might be easy; but to specify from what source it had
come--that was surely not in my power!

They did not leave her alone for long. Mrs. Tuis came in, with her
feminine terrors. "Sylvia, you must know that you are treating your
husband dreadfully! He has gone away down the beach by himself, and
has not even seen his baby!"

"Aunt Varina--" she began, "won't you please go away?"

But the other rushed on: "Your husband comes here, broken with grief
because of this affliction; and you overwhelm him with the most
cruel and wicked reproaches with charges you have no way in the
world of proving----" And the old lady caught her niece by the hand.
"My child! Come, do your duty!"

"My duty?"

"Make yourself fit, and take your husband to see his baby."

"Oh, I can't!" cried Sylvia. "I don't want to be there when he sees
her! If I loved him--" Then, seeing her aunt's face of horror, she
was seized with a sudden impulse of pity, and caught the poor old
lady in her arms. "Aunt Varina," she said, "I am making you suffer,
I know--I am making everyone suffer! But if you only knew how I am
suffering myself! How can I know what to do."

Mrs. Tuis was weeping; but quickly she got herself together, and
answered in a firm voice, "Your old auntie can tell you what to do.
You must come to your senses, my child--you must let your reason
prevail. Get your face washed, make yourself presentable, and come
and take your husband to see your baby. Women have to suffer, dear;
we must not shirk our share of life's burdens."

"There is no danger of my shirking," said Sylvia, bitterly.

"Come, dear, come," pleaded Mrs. Tuis. She was trying to lead the
girl to the mirror. If only she could be made to see how distraught
and disorderly she looked! "Let me help you to dress, dear--you know
how much better it always makes you feel."

Sylvia laughed, a trifle wildly--but Mrs. Tuis had dealt with
hysteria before. "What would you like to wear?" she demanded. And
then, without waiting for an answer, "Let me choose something. One
of your pretty frocks."

"A pretty frock, and a seething volcano underneath! That is your
idea of a woman's life!"

The other responded very gravely, "A pretty frock, my dear, and a
smile--instead of a vulgar scene, and ruin and desolation
afterwards."

Sylvia made no reply. Yes, that was the life of woman--her old aunt
knew! And her old aunt knew also the psychology of her sex. She did
not go on talking about pretty frocks in the abstract; she turned at
once to the clothes-closet, and began laying pretty frocks upon the
bed!

3. Sylvia emerged upon the "gallery," clad in dainty pink muslin,
her beautiful shiny hair arranged under a semi-invalid's cap of pink
maline. Her face was pale, and the big red-brown eyes were hollow;
but she was quiet, and apparently mistress of herself again. She
even humoured Aunt Varina by leaning slightly upon her feeble arm,
while the maid hastened to place her chair in a shaded spot.

Her husband came, and the doctors; the tea-things were brought, and
Aunt Varina poured tea, a-flutter with excitement. They talked about
the comparative temperatures of New York and the Florida Keys, and
about hedges of jasmine to shade the gallery from the evening sun.
And after a while, Aunt Varina arose, explaining that she would
prepare Elaine for her father's visit. In the doorway she stood for
a moment, smiling upon the pretty picture; it was all settled
now--the outward forms had been observed, and the matter would end,
as such matters should end between husband and wife--a few tears, a
few reproaches, and then a few kisses.

The baby was made ready, with a new dress, and a fresh silk bandage
to cover the pitiful, lifeless eyes. Aunt Varina had found pleasure
in making these bandages; she made them soft and pretty--less
hygienic, perhaps, but avoiding the suggestion of the hospital.

When Sylvia and her husband came into the room, the faces of both of
them were white. Sylvia stopped near the door-way; and poor Aunt
Varina fluttered about, in agony of soul. When van Tuiver went to
the cradle, she hurried to his side, and sought to awaken the little
one with gentle nudges. Quite unexpectedly to her, van Tuiver sought
to pick up the infant; she helped him, and he stood, holding it
awkwardly, as if afraid it might go to pieces in his arms.

So any man might appear, with his first infant; but to Sylvia it
seemed the most tragic sight she had ever seen in her life. She gave
a low cry, "Douglas!" and he turned, and she saw his face was
working with the feeling he was ashamed for anyone to see. "Oh,
Douglas," she whispered, "I'm so _sorry_ for you!" At which Aunt
Varina decided that it was time for her to make her escape.

4. But the trouble between these two were not such as could be
settled by any burst of emotion. The next day they were again in a
dispute, for he had come to ask her word of honour that she would
never see me again, and would give him my letters to be returned
unopened. This last was what she had let her father do in the case
of Frank Shirley; and she had become certain in her own mind that
she had done wrong.

But he was insistent in his demand; declaring that it should be
obvious to her there could be no peace of mind for him so long as my
influence continued in her life.

"But surely," protested Sylvia, "to hear Mary Abbott's
explanation----"

"There can be no explanation that is not an insult to your husband,
and to those who are caring for you. I am speaking in this matter
not merely for myself, but for your physicians, who know this woman,
heard her menaces and her vulgarity. It is their judgment that you
should be protected at all hazards from further contact with her."

"Douglas," she argued, "you must realize that I am in distress of
mind about this matter----"

"I certainly realize that."

"And if you are thinking of my welfare, you should choose a course
that would set my mind at rest. But when you come to me and ask me
that I should not even read a letter from my friend--don't you
realize what you suggest to me, that there is something you are
afraid for me to know?"

"I do not attempt to deny my fear of this woman. I have seen how she
has been able to poison your mind with suspicions----"

"Yes, Douglas--but now that has been done. What else is there to
fear from her?"

"I have no idea what. She is a bitter, jealous woman, with a mind
full of hatred; and you are an innocent girl, who cannot judge about
these matters. What idea have you of the world in which you live, of
the slanders to which a man in your husband's position is exposed?"

"I am not quite such a child as that----"

"You have simply no idea, I tell you. I remember your consternation
when we first met, and I told you about the woman who had written me
a begging letter, and got an interview with me, and then started
screaming, and refused to leave the house till I had paid her a lot
of money. You had never heard such stories, had you? Yet it is the
kind of thing that is happening to rich men continually; it was one
of the first rules I was taught, never to let myself be alone with a
strange woman, no matter of what age, or under what circumstances."

"But, I assure you, I would not listen to such people----"

"You are asking right now to listen! And you would be influenced by
her--you could not help it, any more than you can help being
distressed about what she has already said. She intimated to Dr.
Perrin that she believed that I had been a man of depraved life, and
that my wife and child were now paying the penalty. How can I tell
what vile stories concerning me she may not have heard? How could I
have any peace of mind while I knew that she was free to pour them
into your ear?"

Sylvia sat dumb with questions she would not utter, hovering on the
tip of her tongue.

He took her silence for acquiesence, and went on, quickly, "Let me
give you an illustration. A friend of mine whom you know well--I
might as well tell you his name, it was Freddie Atkins--was at
supper with some theatrical women; and one of them, not having any
idea that Freddie knew me, proceeded to talk about me, and how she
had met me, and where we had been together--about my yacht, and my
castle in Scotland, and I don't know what all else. It seems that
this woman had been my mistress for several years; she told quite
glibly about me and my habits. Freddie got the woman's picture, on
some pretext or other, and brought it to me; I had never laid eyes
on her in my life. He could hardly believe it, and to prove it to
him I offered to meet the woman, under another name. We sat in a
restaurant, and she told the tale to Freddie and myself
together--until finally he burst out laughing, and told her who I
was."

He paused, to let this sink in. "Now, suppose your friend, Mary
Abbott, had met that woman! I don't imagine she is particularly
careful whom she associates with; and suppose she had come and told
you that she knew such a woman--what would you have said? Can you
deny that the tale would have made an impression on you? Yet, I've
not the least doubt there are scores of women who made such tales
about me a part of their stock in trade; there are thousands of
women whose fortunes would be made for life if they could cause such
a tale to be believed. And imagine how well-informed they would be,
if anyone were to ask them concerning my habits, and the reason why
our baby is blind! I tell you, when the rumour concerning our child
has begun to spread, there will be ten thousand people in New York
city who will know of first-hand, personal knowledge exactly how it
happened, and how you took it, and everything that I said to you
about it. There will be sneers in the society-papers, from New York
to San Francisco; and smooth-tongued gentlemen calling, to give us
hints that we can stop these sneers by purchasing a de-luxe edition
of a history of our ancestors for six thousand dollars. There will
be well-meaning and beautiful-souled people who will try to get you
to confide in them, and then use their knowledge of your domestic
unhappiness to blackmail you; there will be threats of law-suits
from people who will claim that they have contracted a disease from
you or your child--your laundress, perhaps, or your maid, or one of
these nurses----"

"Oh, stop! stop!" she cried.

"I am quite aware," he said, quietly, "that these things are not
calculated to preserve the peace of mind of a young mother. You are
horrified when I tell you of them--yet you clamour for the right to
have Mrs. Abbott tell you of them! I warn you, Sylvia--you have
married a rich man, who is exposed to the attacks of cunning and
unscrupulous enemies. You, as his wife, are exactly as much
exposed--possibly even more so. Therefore when I see you entering
into what I know to be a dangerous intimacy, I must have the right
to say to you, This shall stop, and I tell you, there can never be
any safety or peace of mind for either of us, so long as you attempt
to deny me that right."

5. Dr. Gibson took his departure three or four days later; and
before he went, he came to give her his final blessing; talking to
her, as he phrased it, "like a Dutch uncle." "You must understand,"
he said, "I am almost old enough to be your grandfather. I have four
sons, anyone of whom might have married you, if they had had the
good fortune to be in Castleman County at the critical time. So you
must let me be frank with you."

Sylvia indicated that she was willing.

"We don't generally talk to women about these matters; because
they've no standard by which to judge, and they almost always fly
off and have hysterics. Their case seems to them exceptional and
horrible, their husbands the blackest criminals in the whole tribe."

He paused for a moment. "Now, Mrs. van Tuiver, the disease which has
made your baby blind is probably what we call gonorrhea. When it
gets into the eyes, it has very terrible results. But it doesn't
often get into the eyes, and for the most part it's a trifling
affair, that we don't worry about. I know there are a lot of
new-fangled notions, but I'm an old man, with experience of my own,
and I have to have things proven to me. I know that with as much of
this disease as we doctors see, if it was a deadly disease, there'd
be nobody left alive in the world. As I say, I don't like to discuss
it with women; but it was not I who forced the matter upon your
attention----"

"Pray go on, Dr. Gibson," she said. "I really wish to know all that
you will tell me."

"The question has come up, how was this disease brought to your
child? Dr. Perrin suggested that possibly he--you understand his
fear; and possibly he is correct. But it seems to me an illustration
of the unwisdom of a physician's departing from his proper duty,
which is to cure people. If you wish to find out who brought a
disease, what you need is a detective. I know, of course, that there
are people who can combine the duties of physician and
detective--and that without any previous preparation or study of
either profession."

He waited for this irony to sink in; and Sylvia also waited,
patiently.

At last he resumed, "The idea has been planted in your mind that
your husband brought the trouble; and that idea is sure to stay
there and fester. So it becomes necessary for someone to talk to you
straight. Let me tell you that eight men out of ten have had this
disease at some time in their lives; also that very few of them were
cured of it when they thought they were. You have a cold: and then
next month, you say the cold is gone. So it is, for practical
purposes. But if I take a microscope, I find the germs of the cold
still in your membranes, and I know that you can give a cold, and a
bad cold, to some one else who is sensitive. It is true that you may
go through all the rest of your life without ever being entirely rid
of that cold. You understand me?"

"Yes," said Sylvia, in a low voice.

"I say eight out of ten. Estimates would differ. Some doctors would
say seven out of ten--and some actual investigations have shown nine
out of ten. And understand me, I don't mean bar-room loafers and
roustabouts. I mean your brothers, if you have any, your cousins,
your best friends, the men who came to make love to you, and whom
you thought of marrying. If you had found it out about any one of
them, of course you'd have cut the acquaintance; yet you'd have been
doing an injustice--for if you had done that to all who'd ever had
the disease, you might as well have retired to a nunnery at once."

The old gentleman paused again; then frowning at her under his bushy
eye-brows, he exclaimed, "I tell you, Mrs. van Tuiver, you're doing
your husband a wrong. Your husband loves you, and he's a good
man--I've had some talks with him, and I know he's not got nearly so
much on his conscience as the average husband. I'm a Southern man,
and I know these gay young bloods you've danced and flirted with all
your young life. Do you think if you went probing into their secret
affairs, you'd have had much pleasure in their company afterwards? I
tell you again, you're doing your husband a wrong! You're doing
something that very few men would stand, as patiently as he has
stood it so far."

All this time Sylvia had given no sign. So the old gentleman began
to feel a trifle uneasy. "Mind you," he said, "I'm not saying that
men ought to be like that. They deserve a good hiding, most of
them--they're very few of them fit to associate with a good woman.
I've always said that no man is really good enough for a good woman.
But my point is that when you select one to punish, you select not
the guiltiest one, but simply the one who's had the misfortune to
fall under suspicion. And he knows that's not fair; he'd have to be
more than human if deep in his soul he did not bitterly resent it.
You understand me?"

"I understand," she replied, in the same repressed voice.

And the doctor rose and laid his hand on her shoulder. "I'm going
home," he said--"very probably we'll never meet each other again. I
see you making a great mistake, laying up unhappiness for yourself
in the future; and I wish to prevent it if I can. I wish to persuade
you to face the facts of the world in which we live. So I am going
to tell you something that I never expected I should tell to a
lady."

He was looking her straight in the eye. "You see me--I'm an old man,
and I seem fairly respectable to you. You've laughed at me some, but
even so, you've found it possible to get along with me without too
great repugnance. Well, I've had this disease; I've had it, and
nevertheless I've raised six fine, sturdy children. More than that--
I'm not free to name anybody else, but I happen to know positively
that among the men your husband employs on this island there are two
who have the disease right now. And the next charming and well-bred
gentleman you are introduced to, just reflect that there are at
least eight chances in ten that he has had the disease, and perhaps
three or four in ten that he has it at the minute he's shaking hands
with you. And now you think that over, and stop tormenting your poor
husband!"

6. One of the first things I did when I reached New York was to send
a little love-letter to Sylvia. I said nothing that would distress
her; I merely assured her that she was in my thoughts, and that I
should look to see her in New York, when we could have a good talk.
I put this in a plain envelope, with a typewritten address, and
registered it in the name of my stenographer. The receipt came back,
signed by an unknown hand, probably the secretary's. I found out
later that the letter never got to Sylvia.

No doubt it was the occasion of renewed efforts upon her husband's
part to obtain from her the promise he desired. He would not be put
off with excuses; and at last he got her answer, in the shape of a
letter which she told him she intended to mail to me. In this letter
she announced her decision that she owed it to her baby to avoid all
excitement and nervous strain during the time that she was nursing
it. Her husband had sent for the yacht, and they were going to
Scotland, and in the winter to the Mediterranean and the Nile.
Meantime she would not correspond with me; but she wished me to know
that there was to be no break in our friendship, and that she would
see me upon her return to New York.

"There is much that has happened that I do not understand," she
added. "For the present, however, I shall try to dismiss it from my
mind. I am sure you will agree that it is right for me to give a
year to being a mother; as I wish you to feel perfectly at peace in
the meantime, I mention that it is my intention to be a mother only,
and not a wife. I am showing this letter to my husband before I mail
it, so that he may know exactly what I am doing, and what I have
decided to do in the future."

"Of course," he said, after reading this, "you may send the letter,
if you insist--but you must realize that you are only putting off
the issue."

She made no reply; and at last he asked, "You mean you intend to
defy me in this matter?"

"I mean," she replied, quietly, "that for the sake of my baby I
intend to put off all discussion for a year."

7. I figured that I should hear from Claire Lepage about two days
after I reached New York; and sure enough, she called me on the
'phone. "I want to see you at once," she declared; and her voice
showed the excitement under which she was labouring.

"Very well," I said, "come down."

She entered my little living-room. It was the first time she had
ever visited me, but she did not stop for a glance about her; she
did not even stop to sit down. "Why didn't you tell me that you knew
Sylvia Castleman?" she cried.

"My dear woman," I replied, "I was not under the least obligation to
tell you."

"You have betrayed me!" she exclaimed, wildly.

"Come, Claire," I said, after I had looked her in the eye a bit to
calm her. "You know quite well that I was under no bond of secrecy.
And, besides, I haven't done you any harm."

"Why did you do it?" I regret to add that she swore.

"I never once mentioned your name, Claire."

"How much good do you imagine that does me? They have managed to
find out everything. They caught me in a trap."

I reminded myself that it would not do to show any pity for her.
"Sit down, Claire," I said. "Tell me about it."

She cried, in a last burst of anger, "I don't want to talk to you!"

"All right," I answered. "But then, why did you come?"

There was no reply to that. She sat down. "They were too much for
me!" she lamented. "If I'd had the least hint, I might have held my
own. As it was--I let them make a fool of me."

"You are talking hieroglyphics to me. Who are 'they'?"

"Douglas, and that old fox, Rossiter Torrance."

"Rossiter Torrance?" I repeated the name, and then suddenly
remembered. The thin-lipped old family lawyer!

"He sent up his card, and said he'd been sent to see me by Mary
Abbot. Of course, I had no suspicion--I fell right into the trap. We
talked about you for a while--he even got me to tell him where you
lived; and then at last he told me that he hadn't come from you at
all, but had merely wanted to find out if I knew you, and how
intimate we were. He had been sent by Douglas; and he wanted to know
right away how much I had told you about Douglas, and why I had done
it. Of course, I denied that I had told anything. Heavens, what a
time he gave me!"

Claire paused. "Mary, how could you have played such a trick upon
me?"

"I had no thought of doing you any harm," I replied. "I was simply
trying to help Sylvia."

"To help her at any expense!"

"Tell me, what will come of it? Are you afraid they'll cut off your
allowance?"

"That's the threat."

"But will they carry it out?"

She sat, gazing at me resentfully. "I don't know whether I ought to
trust you any more," she said.

"Do what you please about that," I replied. "I don't want to urge
you."

She hesitated a bit longer, and then decided to throw herself upon
my mercy. They would not dare to carry out their threat, so long as
Sylvia had not found out the whole truth. So now she had come to beg
me to tell no more than I had already told. She was utterly abject
about it. I had pretended to be her friend, I had won her confidence
and listened to her confessions; how did I wish to ruin her utterly,
to have her cast out on the street?

Poor Claire! I said in the early part of my story that she
understood the language of idealism; but I wonder what I have told
about her that justifies this. The truth is, she was going down so
fast that already she seemed a different person; and she had been
frightened by the thin-lipped old family lawyer, so that she was
incapable of even a decent pretence.

"Claire," I said, "there is no need for you to go on like this. I
have not the slightest intention of telling Sylvia about you. I
cannot imagine the circumstances that would make me want to tell
her. Even if I should do it, I would tell her in confidence, so that
her husband would never have any idea----"

She went almost wild at this. To imagine that a woman would keep
such a confidence! As if she would not throw it at her husband's
head the first time they quarreled! Besides, if Sylvia knew this
truth, she might leave him; and if she left him, Claire's hold on
his money would be gone.

Over this money we had a long and lachrymose interview. And at the
end of it, there she sat gazing into space, baffled and bewildered.
What kind of a woman was I? How had I got to be the friend of Sylvia
van Tuiver? What had she seen in me, and what did I expect to get
out of her? I answered briefly; and suddenly Claire was overwhelmed
by a rush of curiosity--plain human curiosity. What was Sylvia like?
Was she as clever as they said? What was the baby like, and how was
Sylvia taking the misfortune? Could it really be true that I had
been visiting the van Tuivers in Florida, as old Rossiter Torrance
had implied?

Needless to say, I did not answer these questions freely. And I
really think my visitor was more pained by my uncommunicativeness
than she was by my betrayal of her. It was interesting also to
notice a subtle difference in her treatment of me. Gone was the
slight touch of condescension, gone was most of the familiarity! I
had become a personage, a treasurer of high state secrets, an
intimate of the great ones! There must be something more to me than
Claire had realized before!

Poor Claire! She passes here from this story. For years thereafter I
used to catch a glimpse of her now and then, in the haunts of the
birds of gorgeous plumage; but I never got a chance to speak to her,
nor did she ever call on me again. So I do not know if Douglas van
Tuiver still continues her eight thousand a year. All I can say is
that when I saw her, her plumage was as gorgeous as ever, and its
style duly certified to the world that it had not been held over
from a previous season of prosperity. Twice I thought she had been
drinking too much; but then--so had many of the other ladies with
the little glasses of bright-coloured liquids before them.

8. For the rest of that year I knew nothing about Sylvia except what
I read in the "society" column of my newspaper--that she was
spending the late summer in her husband's castle in Scotland. I
myself was suffering from the strain of what I had been through, and
had to take a vacation. I went West; and when I came back in the
fall, to plunge again into my work, I read that the van Tuivers, in
their yacht, the "Triton," were in the Mediterranean, and were
planning to spend the winter in Japan.

And then one day in January, like a bolt from the blue, came a
cablegram from Sylvia, dated Cairo: "Sailing for New York, Steamship
'Atlantic,' are you there, answer."

Of course I answered. And I consulted the sailing-lists, and waited,
wild with impatience. She sent me a wireless, two days out, and so I
was at the pier when the great vessel docked. Yes, there she was,
waving her handkerchief to me; and there by her side stood her
husband.

It was a long, cold ordeal, while the ship was warped in. We could
only gaze at each other across the distance, and stamp our feet and
beat our hands. There were other friends waiting for the van
Tuivers, I saw, and so I held myself in the background, full of a
thousand wild speculations. How incredible that Sylvia, arriving
with her husband, should have summoned me to meet her!

At last the gangway was let down, and the stream of passengers began
to flow. In time came the van Tuivers, and their friends gathered to
welcome them. I waited; and at last Sylvia came to me--outwardly
calm--but with her emotions in the pressure of her two hands. "Oh,
Mary, Mary!" she murmured. "I'm so glad to see you! I'm so glad to
see you!"

"What has happened?" I asked.

Her voice went to a whisper. "I am leaving my husband."

"Leaving your husband!" I stood, dumbfounded.

"Leaving him for ever, Mary."

"But--but----" I could not finish the sentence. My eyes moved to
where he stood, calmly chatting with his friends.

"He insisted on coming back with me, to preserve appearances. He is
terrified of the gossip. He is going all the way home, and then
leave me."

"Sylvia! What does it mean?" I whispered.

"I can't tell you here. I want to come and see you. Are you living
at the same place?"

I answered in the affirmative.

"It's a long story," she added. "I must apologise for asking you to
come here, where we can't talk. But I did it for an important
reason. I can't make my husband really believe that I mean what I
say; and you are my Declaration of Independence!" And she laughed,
but a trifle wildly, and looking at her suddenly, I realized that
she was keyed almost to the breaking point.

"You poor dear!" I murmured.

"I wanted to show him that I meant what I said. I wanted him to see
us meet. You see, he's going home, thinking that with the help of my
people he can make me change my mind."

"But why do you go home? Why not stay here with me? There's an
apartment vacant next to mine."

"And with a baby?"

"There are lots of babies in our tenement," I said. But to tell the
truth, I had almost forgotten the baby in the excitement of the
moment. "How is she," I asked.

"Come and see," said Sylvia; and when I glanced enquiringly at the
tall gentleman who was chatting with his friends, she added, "She's
_my_ baby, and I have a right to show her."

The nurse, a rosy-cheeked English girl in a blue dress and a bonnet
with long streamers, stood apart, holding an armful of white silk
and lace. Sylvia turned back the coverings; and again I beheld the
vision which had so thrilled me--the comical little miniature of
herself--her nose, her lips, her golden hair. But oh, the pitiful
little eyes, that did not move! I looked at my friend, uncertain
what I should say; I was startled to see her whole being aglow with
mother-pride. "Isn't she a dear?" she whispered. "And, Mary, she's
learning so fast, and growing--you couldn't believe it!" Oh, the
marvel of mother-love, I thought--that is blinder than any child it
ever bore!

We turned away; and Sylvia said, "I'll come to you as soon as I've
got the baby settled. Our train starts for the South to-night, so I
shan't waste any time."

"God bless you, dear," I whispered; and she gave my hand a squeeze,
and turned away. I stood for a few moments watching, and saw her
approach her husband, and exchange a few smiling words with him in
the presence of their friends. I, knowing the agony that was in the
hearts of that desperate young couple, marvelled anew at the
discipline of caste.

9. She sat in my big arm-chair; and how proud I was of her, and how
thrilled by her courage. Above all, however, I was devoured by
curiosity. "Tell me!" I exclaimed.

"There's so much," she said.

"Tell me why you are leaving him."

"Mary, because I don't love him. That's the one reason. I have
thought it out--I have thought of little else for the last year. I
have come to see that it is wrong for a woman to live with a man she
does not love. It is the supreme crime a woman can commit."

"Ah, yes!" I said. "If you have got that far!"

"I have got that far. Other things have contributed, but they are
not the real things--they might have been forgiven. The fact that he
had this disease, and made my child blind----"

"Oh! You found out that?"

"Yes, I found it out."

"How?"

"It came to me little by little. In the end, he grew tired of
pretending, I think." She paused for a moment, then went on, "The
trouble was over the question of my obligations as a wife. You see,
I had told him at the outset that I was going to live for my baby,
and for her alone. That was the ground upon which he had persuaded
me not to see you or read any of your letters. I was to ask no
questions, and be nice and bovine--and I agreed. But then, a few
months ago, my husband came to me with the story of his needs. He
said that the doctors had given their sanction to our reunion. Of
course, I was stunned. I knew that he had understood me before we
left Florida."

She stopped. "Yes, dear," I said, gently.

"Well, he said now the doctors were agreed there was no danger to
either of us. We could take precautions and not have children. I
could only plead that the whole subject was distressing to me. He
had asked me to put off my problems till my baby was weaned; now I
asked him to put off his. But that would not do, it seemed. He took
to arguing with me. It was an unnatural way to live, and he could
not endure it. I was a woman, and I couldn't understand this. It
seemed utterly impossible to make him realize what I felt. I suppose
he has always had what he wanted, and he simply does not know what
it is to be denied. It wasn't only a physical thing, I think; it was
an affront to his pride, a denial of his authority." She stopped,
and I saw her shudder.

"I have been through it all," I said.

"He wanted to know how long I expected to withhold myself. I said,
'Until I have got this disease out of my mind, as well as out of my
body; until I know that there is no possibility of either of us
having it, to give to the other.' But then, after I had taken a
little more time to think it over, I said, 'Douglas, I must be
honest with you. I shall never be able to live with you again. It is
no longer a question of your wishes or mine--it is a question of
right or wrong. I do not love you. I know now that it can never
under any circumstances be right for a woman to give herself in the
intimacy of the sex-relation without love. When she does it, she is
violating the deepest instinct of her nature, the very voice of God
in her soul.'

"His reply was, 'Why didn't you know that before you married?'

"I answered, 'I did not know what marriage meant; and I let myself
be persuaded by others.'

"'By your own mother!' he declared.

"I said, 'A mother who permits her daughter to commit such an
offence is either a slave-dealer, or else a slave.' Of course, he
thought I was out of my mind at that. He argued about the duties of
marriage, the preserving of the home, wives submitting themselves to
their husbands, and so on. He would not give me any peace----"

And suddenly she started up. I saw in her eyes the light of old
battles. "Oh, it was a horror!" she cried, beginning to pace the
floor. "It seemed to me that I was living the agony of all the
loveless marriages of the world. I felt myself pursued, not merely
by the importunate desires of one man--I suffered with all the
millions of women who give themselves night after night without
love! He came to seem like some monster to me; I could not meet him
unexpectedly without starting. I forbade him to mention the subject
to me again, and for a long time he obeyed. But several weeks ago he
brought it up afresh, and I lost my self-control completely.
'Douglas,' I said, 'I can stand it no longer! It is not only the
tragedy of my blind child--it's that you have driven me to hate you.
You have crushed all the life and joy and youth out of me! You've
been to me like a terrible black cloud, constantly pressing down on
me, smothering me. You stalk around me like a grim, sepulchral
figure, closing me up in the circle of your narrow ideas. But now I
can endure it no longer. I was a proud, high-spirited girl, you've
made of me a colourless social automaton, a slave of your stupid
worldly traditions. I'm turning into a feeble, complaining,
discontented wife! And I refuse to be it. I'm going home--where at
least there's some human spontaneity left in people; I'm going back
to my father!'--And I went and looked up the next steamer!"

She stopped. She stood before me, with the fire of her wild Southern
blood shining in her cheeks and in her eyes.

I sat waiting, and finally she went on, "I won't repeat all his
protests. When he found that I was really going, he offered to take
me in the yacht, but I wouldn't go in the yacht. I had got to be
really afraid of him--sometimes, you know, his obstinacy seems to be
abnormal, almost insane. So then he decided he would have to go in
the steamer with me to preserve appearances. I had a letter saying
that papa was not well, and he said that would serve for an excuse.
He is going to Castleman County, and after he has stayed a week or
so, he is going off on a hunting-trip, and not return."

"And will he do it?"

"I don't think he expects to do it at present. I feel sure he has
the idea of starting mamma to quoting the Bible to me, and dragging
me down with her tears. But I have done all I can to make clear to
him that it will make no difference. I told him I would not say a
word about my intentions at home until he had gone away, and that I
expected the same silence from him. But, of course--" She stopped
abruptly, and after a moment she asked: "What do you think of it,
Mary?"

I leaned forward and took her two hands in mine. "Only," I said,
"that I'm glad you fought it out alone! I knew it had to come--and I
didn't want to have to help you to decide!"

10. She sat for a while absorbed in her own thoughts. Knowing her as
I did, I understood what intense emotions were seething within her,
what a terrific struggle her decision must have represented.

"Dear Friend," she said, suddenly, "don't think I haven't seen his
side of the case. I try to tell myself that I dealt with him frankly
from the beginning. But then I ask was there ever a man I dealt with
frankly? There was coquetry in the very clothes I wore! And now that
we are so entangled, now that he loves me, what is my duty? I find I
can't respect his love for me. A part of it is because my beauty
fascinates him, but more of it seems to me just wounded vanity. I
was the only woman who ever flouted him, and he has a kind of
snobbery that made him think I must be something remarkable because
of it. I talked that all out with him--yes, I've dragged him
through all that humiliation. I wanted to make him see that he
didn't really love me, that he only wanted to conquer me, to force
me to admire him and submit to him. I want to be myself, and he
wants to be himself--that has always been the issue between us."

"That is the issue in many unhappy marriages," I said.

"I've done a lot of thinking in the last year," she resumed--"about
things generally, I mean. We American women think we are so free.
That is because our husbands indulge us, give us money, and let us
run about. But when it comes to real freedom--freedom of intellect
and of character, English women are simply another kind of being
from us. I met a cabinet minister's wife--he's a Conservative in
everything, and she's an ardent suffragist; she not merely gives
money, she makes speeches and has a public name. Yet they are
friends, and have a happy home-life. Do you suppose my husband would
consider such an arrangement?"

"I thought he admired English ways," I said.

"There was the Honorable Betty Annersley--the sister of a chum of
his. She was friendly with the militants, and I wanted to talk to
her to understand what such women thought. Yet my husband tried to
stop me from going to see her. And it's the same way with everything
I try to do, that threatens to take me out of his power. He wanted
me to accept the authority of the doctors as to any possible danger
from venereal disease. When I got the books, and showed him what the
doctors admitted about the question--the narrow margin of safety
they allowed, the terrible chances they took--he was angry again."

She stopped, seeing a question in my eyes. "I've been reading up on
the subject," she explained. "I know it all now--the things I should
have known before I married."

"How did you manage that?"

"I tried to get two of the doctors to give me something to read, but
they wouldn't hear of it. I'd set myself crazy imagining things, it
was no sort of stuff for a woman's mind. So in the end I took the
bit in my teeth. I found a medical book store, and I went in and
said: 'I am an American physician, and I want to see the latest
works on venereal disease.' So the clerk took me to the shelves, and
I picked out a couple of volumes."

"You poor child!" I exclaimed.

"When Douglas found that I was reading these books he threatened to
burn them. I told him 'There are more copies in the store, and I am
determined to be educated on this subject.'"

She paused. "How much like my own experience!" I thought.

"There were chapters on the subject of wives, how much they were not
told, and why this was. So very quickly I began to see around my own
experience. Douglas must have figured out that this would be so, for
the end of the matter was an admission."

"You don't mean he confessed to you!"

She smiled bitterly. "No," she said. "He brought Dr. Perrin to
London to do it for him. Dr. Perrin said he had concluded I had best
know that my husband had had some symptoms of the disease. He, the
doctor, wished to tell me who was to blame for the attempt to
deceive me. Douglas had been willing to admit the truth, but all the
doctors had forbidden it. I must realise the fearful problem they
had, and not blame them, and, above all I must not blame my husband,
who had been in their hands in the matter."

"How stupid men are! As if that would excuse him!"

"I'm afraid I showed the little man how poor an impression he had
made--both for himself and for his patron. But I had suffered all
there was to suffer, and I was tired of pretending. I told him it
would have been far better for them if they had told me the truth at
the beginning."

"Ah, yes!" I said. "That is what I tried to make them see; but all I
got for it was a sentence of deportation!"

11. When Sylvia's train arrived at the station of her home town, the
whole family was waiting upon the platform for her, and a good part
of the town besides. The news that she had arrived in New York, and
was coming home on account of her father's illness, had, of course,
been reproduced in all the local papers, with the result that the
worthy major had been deluged with telegrams and letters concerning
his health. Notwithstanding, he had insisted upon coming to the
train to meet his daughter. He was not going to be shut up in a
sickroom to please all the gossips of two hemispheres. In his best
black broad-cloth, his broad, black hat newly brushed, and his
old-fashioned, square-toed shoes newly shined, he paced up and down
the station platform for half an hour, and it was to his arms that
Sylvia flew when she alighted from the train.

There was "Miss Margaret," who had squeezed her large person and
fluttering draperies out of the family automobile, and was waiting
to shed tears over her favourite daughter; there was Celeste,
radiant with a wonderful piece of news which she alone was to impart
to her sister; there were Peggy and Maria, shot up suddenly into two
amazingly-gawky girls; there was Master Castleman Lysle, the only
son of the house, with his black-eyed and bad-tempered French
governess. And finally there was Aunt Varina, palpitating with
various agitations, not daring to whisper to anyone else the fears
which this sudden home-coming inspired in her. Bishop Chilton and
his wife were away, but a delegation of cousins had come; also Uncle
Mandeville Castleman had sent a huge bunch of roses, which were in
the family automobile, and Uncle Barry Chilton had sent a pair of
wild turkeys, which were soon to be in the family.

Behind Sylvia stalked her cold and haughty husband, and behind him
tripped the wonderful nursemaid, with her wonderful blue streamers,
and her wonderful bundle of ruffles and lace. All the huge family
had to fall upon Sylvia and kiss and embrace her rapturously, and
shake the hand of the cold and haughty husband, and peer into the
wonderful bundle, and go into ecstasies over its contents. Rarely,
indeed, did the great ones of this earth condescend to spread so
much of their emotional life before the public gaze; and was it any
wonder that the town crowded about, and the proprieties were
temporarily repealed?

It had never been published, but it was generally known throughout
the State that Sylvia's child was blind, and it was whispered that
this portended something strange and awful. So there hung about the
young mother and the precious bundle an atmosphere of mystery and
melancholy. How had she taken her misfortune? How had she taken all
the great events that had befallen her--her progress through the
courts and camps of Europe? Would she still condescend to know her
fellow-townsmen? Many were the hearts that beat high as she bestowed
her largess of smiles and friendly words. There were even humble old
negroes who went off enraptured to tell the town that "Mi' Sylvia"
had actually shaken hands with them. There was almost a cheer from
the crowd as the string of automobiles set out for Castleman Hall.

12. There was a grand banquet that evening, at which the turkeys
entered the family. Not in years had there been so many people
crowded into the big dining-room, nor so many servants treading upon
each other's toes in the kitchen.

Such a din of chatter and laughter! Sylvia was her old radiant self,
and her husband was quite evidently charmed by the patriarchal
scene. He was affable, really genial, and won the hearts of
everybody; he told the good major, amid a hush which almost turned
his words into a speech, that he was able to understand how they of
the South loved their own section so passionately; there was about
the life an intangible something--a spell, an elevation of spirit,
which set it quite apart by itself. And since this was the thing
which they of the South most delighted to believe concerning
themselves, they listened enraptured, and set the speaker apart as a
rare and discerning spirit.

Afterwards came the voice of Sylvia: "You must beware of Douglas,
Papa; he is an inveterate flatterer." She laughed as she said it;
and of those present it was Aunt Varina alone who caught the ominous
note, and saw the bitter curl of her lips as she spoke. Aunt Varina
and her niece were the only persons there who knew Douglas van
Tuiver well enough to appreciate the irony of the term "inveterate
flatterer."

Sylvia realized at once that her husband was setting out upon a
campaign to win her family to his side. He rode about the major's
plantations, absorbing information about the bollweevil. He rode
back to the house, and exchanged cigars, and listened to stories of
the major's boyhood during the war. He went to call upon Bishop
Chilton, and sat in his study, with its walls of faded black volumes
on theology. Van Tuiver himself had had a Church of England tutor,
and was a punctilious high churchman; but he listened respectfully
to arguments for a simpler form of church organization, and took
away a voluminous _expos�_ of the fallacies of "Apostolic
Succession." And then came Aunt Nannie, ambitious and alert as when
she had helped the young millionaire to find a wife; and the young
millionaire made the suggestion that Aunt Nannie's third daughter
should not fail to visit Sylvia at Newport.

There was no limit, apparently, to what he would do. He took Master
Castleman Lysle upon his knee, and let him drop a valuable watch
upon the floor. He got up early in the morning and went horse-back
riding with Peggy and Maria. He took Celeste automobiling, and
helped by his attentions to impress the cocksure young man with whom
Celeste was in love. He won "Miss Margaret" by these attentions to
all her children, and the patience with which he listened to
accounts of the ailments which had afflicted the precious ones at
various periods of their lives. To Sylvia, watching all these
proceedings, it was as if he were binding himself to her with so
many knots.

She had come home with a longing to be quiet, to avoid seeing
anyone. But this could not be, she discovered. There was gossip
about the child's blindness, and the significance thereof; and to
have gone into hiding would have meant an admission of the worst.
The ladies of the family had prepared a grand "reception," at which
all Castleman County was to come and gaze upon the happy mother. And
then there was the monthly dance at the Country Club, where
everybody would come, in the hope of seeing the royal pair. To
Sylvia it was as if her mother and aunts were behind her every
minute of the day, pushing her out into the world. "Go on, go on!
Show yourself! Do not let people begin to talk!"

13. She bore it for a couple of weeks; then she went to her cousin,
Harley Chilton. "Harley," she said, "my husband is anxious to go on
a hunting-trip. Will you go with him?"

"When?" asked the boy.

"Right away; to-morrow or the next day."

"I'm game," said Harley.

After which she went to her husband. "Douglas, it is time for you to
go."

He sat studying her face. "You still have that idea?" he said, at
last.

"I still have it."

"I was hoping that here, among your home-people, your sanity would
partially return."

"I know what you have been hoping, Douglas. And I am sorry--but I am
quite unchanged."

"Have we not been getting along happily here?" he demanded.

"No, I have not--I have been wretched. And I cannot have any peace
until you no longer haunt me. I am sorry for you, but I must be
alone--and so long as you are here the entertainments will
continue."

"We could make it clear that we did not care for entertainments. We
could find some quiet place near your people, where we could live in
peace."

"Douglas," she said, "I have spoken to Cousin Harley. He is ready to
go hunting with you. Please call him up and make arrangements to
start to-morrow. If you are still here the following day, I shall
leave for one of Uncle Mandeville's plantations."

There was a long silence. "Sylvia," he said, at last, "how long do
you imagine this behaviour of yours can continue?"

"It will continue forever. My mind is made up. It is necessary that
you make up yours."

Again he waited, while he made sure of his self-control. "You
propose to keep the baby with you?" he asked, at last.

"For the present, yes. The baby cannot get along without me."

"And for the future?"

"We will make a fair arrangement as to that. Give me a little time
to get myself together, and then I will come and live somewhere near
you in New York, and I will arrange it so that you can see the child
as often as you please. I have no desire to take her from you--I
only want to take myself from you."

"Sylvia," he said, "have you realized all the unhappiness this
course of yours is going to bring to your people?"

"Oh, don't begin that now!" she pleaded.

"I know," he said, "how determined you are to punish me. But I
should think you would try to find some way to spare them."

"Douglas," she replied, "I know exactly what you have been doing. I
have watched your change of character since you came here. You may
be able to make my people so unhappy that I must be unhappy also.
You see how deeply I love them, how I yield everything for love of
them. But let me make it clear, I will not yield this. It was for
their sake I went into this marriage, but I have come to see that it
was wrong, and no power on earth can induce me to stay in it. My
mind is made up--I will not live with a man I do not love. I will
not even pretend to do it. Now do you understand me, Douglas?"

There was a silence, while she waited for some word from him. When
none came, she asked, "You will arrange to go to-morrow?"

He answered calmly, "I see no reason why I, your husband, should
permit you to pursue this insane course. You propose to leave me;
and the reason you give is one that would, if it were valid, break
up two-thirds of the homes in the country. Your own family will
stand by me in my effort to prevent your ruin."

"What do you expect to do?" she asked in a suppressed voice.

"I have to assume that my wife is insane; and I shall look after her
till she comes to her senses."

She sat watching him for a few moments, wondering at him. Then she
said, "You are willing to stay on here, day after day, pursuing me
in the only refuge I have. Well then, I shall not consider your
feelings. I have a work to do here--and I think that when I begin
it, you will want to be far away."

"What do you mean?" he asked--and he looked at her as if she were
really a maniac.

"You see my sister Celeste is about to marry. That was the wonderful
news she had to tell me at the depot. It happens that I have known
Roger Peyton all my life, and know he has the reputation of being
one of the 'fastest' boys in the town."

"Well?" he asked.

"Just this, Douglas--I do not intend to leave my sister unprotected
as I was. I am going to tell her about Elaine. I am going to tell
her all that she needs to know. It is bound to mean arguments with
the old people, and in the end the whole family will be discussing
the subject. I feel sure you will not care to be here under such
circumstances."

"And may I ask when this begins?" he inquired, with intense
bitterness in his tone.

"Right away," she said. "I have merely been waiting until you should
go."

He said not a word, but she knew by the expression on his face that
she had carried her point at last. He turned and left the room; and
that was the last word she had with him, save for their formal
parting in the presence of the family.

14. Roger Peyton was the son and heir of one of the oldest families
in Castleman County. I had heard of this family before--in a
wonderful story that Sylvia told of the burning of "Rose Briar,"
their stately mansion, some years previously: how the neighbours had
turned out to extinguish the flames, and failing, had danced a last
whirl in the ball-room, while the fire roared in the stories
overhead. The house had since been rebuilt, more splendid than ever,
and the prestige of the family stood undiminished. One of the sons
was an old "flame" of Sylvia's, and another was married to one of
the Chilton girls. As for Celeste, she had been angling for Roger
the past year or two, and she stood now at the apex of happiness.

Sylvia went to her father, to talk with him about the difficult
subject of venereal disease. The poor major had never expected to
live to hear such a discourse from a daughter of his; however, with
the blind child under his roof, he could not find words to stop her.
"But, Sylvia," he protested, "what reason have you to suspect such a
thing of Roger Peyton?"

"I have the reason of his life. You know that he has the reputation
of being 'fast'; you know that he drinks, you know that I once
refused to speak to him because he danced with me when he was
drunk."

"My child, all the men you know have sowed their wild oats."

"Papa, you must not take advantage of me in such a discussion. I
don't claim to know what sins may be included in the phrase 'wild
oats.' Let us speak frankly--can you say that you think it unlikely
that Roger Peyton has been unchaste?"

The major hesitated and coughed; finally he said: "The boy drinks,
Sylvia; further than that I have no knowledge."

"The medical books tell me that the use of alcohol tends to break
down self-control, and to make continence impossible. And if that be
true, you must admit that we have a right to ask assurances. What do
you suppose that Roger and his crowd are doing when they go
roistering about the streets at night? What do they do when they go
off to Mardi Gras? Or at college--you know that Cousin Clive had to
get him out of trouble several times. Go and ask Clive if Roger has
ever been exposed to the possibility of these diseases."

"My child," said the major, "Clive would not feel he had the right
to tell me such things about his friend."

"Not even when the friend wants to marry his cousin?"

"But such questions are not asked, my daughter."

"Papa, I have thought this matter out carefully, and I hava
something definite to propose to you. I have no idea of stopping
with what Clive Chilton may or may not see fit to tell about his
chum. I want _you_ to go to Roger."

Major Castleman's face wore a blank stare.

"If he's going to marry your daughter, you have the right to ask
about his past. What I want you to tell him is that you will get the
name of a reputable specialist in these diseases, and that before he
can have your daughter he must present you with a letter from this
man, to the effect that he is fit to marry."

The poor major was all but speechless. "My child, who ever heard of
such a proposition?"

"I don't know that any one ever did, papa. But it seems to me time
they should begin to hear of it; and I don't see who can have a
better right to take the first step than you and I, who have paid
such a dreadful price for our neglect."

Sylvia had been prepared for opposition--the instinctive opposition
which men manifest to having this embarrassing subject dragged out
into the light of day. Even men who have been chaste
themselves--good fathers of families like the major--cannot be
unaware of the complications incidental to frightening their
women-folk, and setting up an impossibly high standard in
sons-in-law. But Sylvia stood by her guns; at last she brought her
father to his knees by the threat that if he could not bring himself
to talk with Roger Peyton, she, Sylvia Castleman, would do it.

15. The young suitor came by appointment the next day, and had a
session with the Major in his office. After he had gone, Sylvia went
to her father and found him pacing the floor, with an extinct cigar
between his lips, and several other ruined cigars lying on the
hearth.

"You asked him, papa?"

"I did, Sylvia."

"And what did he say?"

"Why, daughter----" The major flung his cigar from him with
desperate energy. "It was most embarrassing!" he exclaimed--"most
painful!" His pale old face was crimson with blushes.

"Go on, papa," said Sylvia, gentle but firm.

"The poor boy--naturally, Sylvia, he could not but feel hurt that I
should think it necessary to ask such questions. Such things are not
done, my child. It seemed to him that I must look upon him as--well,
as much worse than other young fellows----"

The old man stopped, and began to walk restlessly up and down. "Yes,
papa," said Sylvia. "What else?"

"Well, he said it seemed to him that such a matter might have been
left to the honour of a man whom I was willing to think of as a
son-in-law. And you see, my child, what an embarrassing position I
was in; I could not give him any hint as to my reason for being
anxious about these matters--anything, you understand, that might be
to the discredit of your husband."

"Go on, papa."

"Well, I gave him a fatherly talking to about his way of life."

"Did you ask him the definite question as to his health?"

"No, Sylvia."

"Did he tell you anything definite?"

"No."

"Then you didn't do what you had set out to do!"

"Yes, I did. I told him that he must see a doctor."

"You made quite clear to him what you wanted?"

"Yes, I did--really, I did."

"And what did he say?" She went to him and took his arm and led him
to a couch. "Come, papa, let us get to the facts. You must tell me."
They sat down, and the major sighed, lit a fresh cigar, rolled it
about in his fingers until it was ruined, and then flung it away.

"Boys don't talk freely to older men," he said. "They really never
do. You may doubt this----"

"What did he _say,_ papa?"

"Why, he didn't know what to say. He didn't really say anything."
And here the major came to a complete halt.

His daughter, after studying his face for a minute, remarked, "In
plain words, papa, you think he has something to hide, and he may
not be able to give you the evidence you asked?"

The other was silent.

"You fear that is the situation, but you are trying not to believe
it." As he still said nothing, Sylvia whispered, "Poor Celeste!"

Suddenly she put her hands upon his shoulders, and looked into his
eye. "Papa, can't you see what that means--that Celeste ought to
have been told these things long ago?"

"What good would that have done?" he asked, in bewilderment.

"She could have known what kind of man she was choosing; and she
might be spared the dreadful unhappiness that is before her now."

"Sylvia! Sylvia!" protested the other. "Surely such things cannot be
discussed with innocent young girls!"

"So long as we refuse to do it, we are simply entering into a
conspiracy with the man of loose life, so that he may escape the
worst penalty of his evil-doing. Take the boys in our own set--why
is it they feel safe in running off to the big cities and 'sowing
their wild oats'--even sowing them in the obscure parts of their own
town? Is it not because they know that their sisters and girl
friends are ignorant and helpless; so that when they are ready to
pick a wife, they will be at no disadvantage? Here is Celeste; she
knows that Roger has been 'wild,' but no one has hinted to her what
that means; she thinks of things that are picturesque--that he's
high-spirited, and brave, and free with his money."

"But, my daughter," protested the major, "such knowledge would have
a terrible effect upon young girls!" He rose and began to pace the
floor again. "Daughter, you are letting yourself run wild! The
sweetness, the virginal innocence of young and pure women--if you
take that from them, there'd be nothing left to keep men from
falling to the level of brutes!"

"Papa," said Sylvia, "all that sounds well, but it has no meaning. I
have been robbed of my 'innocence,' and I know that it has not
debased me. It has only fitted me to deal with the realities of
life. And it will do the same for any girl who is taught by earnest
and reverent people. Now, as it is, we have to tell Celeste, but we
tell her too late."

"But we _won't_ have to tell her!" cried the major.

"Dear papa, please explain how we can avoid telling her."

"I will inform her that she must give the young man up. She is a
good and dutiful daughter----"

"Yes," replied Sylvia, "but suppose on this one occasion she were to
fail to be good and dutiful? Suppose the next day you learn that she
had run away and married Roger--what would you do about it then?"

16. That evening Roger was to take his _fianc�e_ to one of the young
people's dances. And there was Celeste, in a flaming red dress, with
a great bunch of flaming roses; she could wear these colours, with
her brilliant black hair and gorgeous complexion. Roger was fair,
with a frank, boyish face, and they made a pretty couple; but that
evening Roger did not come. Sylvia helped to dress her sister, and
then watched her wandering restlessly about the hall, while the hour
came and went. Later in the evening Major Castleman called up the
Peyton home. The boy was not there, and no one seemed to know where
he was.

Nor the next day did there come any explanation. At the Peytons it
was still declared that no one had heard from Roger, and for another
day the mystery continued, to Celeste's distress and mortification.
At last, from Clive Chilton, Sylvia managed to extract the truth.
Roger was drunk--crazy drunk, and had been taken off by some of the
boys to be straightened out.

Of course this rumour soon got to the rest of the family and they
had to tell Celeste, because she was frantic with anxiety. There
were grave consultations among the Castleman ladies. It was a wanton
affront to his _fianc�e_ that the boy had committed, and something
must be done about it quickly. Then came the news that Roger had
escaped from his warders, and got drunker than ever; he had been out
at night, smashing the street lamps, and it had required extreme
self-control on the part of the town police force to avoid
complications.

"Miss Margaret" went to her young daughter, and in a tear-flooded
scene informed her of the opinion of the family, that her
self-respect required the breaking of the engagement. Celeste went
into hysterics. She would _not_ have her happiness ruined for life!
Roger was "wild," but so were all the other boys--and he would atone
for his recklessness. She had the idea that if only she could get
hold of him, she could recall him to his senses; the more her mother
was scandalised by this proposal, the more frantically Celeste wept.
She shut herself up in her room, refusing to appear at meals, and
spending her time pacing the floor and wringing her hands.

The family had been through all this with their eldest daughter
several years before, but they had not learned to handle it any
better. The whole household was in a state of distraction, and the
conditions grew worse day by day, as bulletins came in concerning
the young man. He seemed to have gone actually insane. He was not to
be restrained even by his own father, and if the unfortunate
policemen could be believed, he had violently attacked them.
Apparently he was trying to break down the unwritten law that the
sons of the "best families" are not arrested.

Poor Celeste, with pale, tear-drenched face, sent for her elder
sister, to make one last appeal. Could Sylvia not somehow get hold
of Roger and bring him to his senses? Could she not interview some
of the other boys, and find out what he meant by his conduct?

So Sylvia went to her cousin Clive, and had a talk with
him--assuredly the most remarkable talk that that young man had ever
had in his life. She told him that she wanted to know the truth
about Roger Peyton, and after a cross-examination that would have
made the reputation of a criminal lawyer, she got what she wanted.
All the young men in town, it seemed, knew the true state of
affairs, and were in a panic concerning it; that Major Castleman had
sent for Roger and informed him that he could not marry his
daughter, until he produced a certain kind of medical certificate.
No, he couldn't produce it! Was there a fellow in town who could
produce it? What was there for him to do but to get drunk and stay
drunk, until Celeste had cast him off?

It was Clive's turn then to do some plain speaking. "Look here,
Sylvia," he said, "since you have made me talk about this----"

"Yes, Clive?"

"Do you know what people are saying--I mean the reason the Major
made this proposition to Roger?"

She answered, in a quiet voice: "I suppose, Clive, it has something
to do with Elaine."

"Yes, exactly!" exclaimed Clive. "They say--" But then he stopped.
He could not repeat it. "Surely you don't want that kind of talk,
Sylvia?"

"Naturally, Clive, I'd prefer to escape that kind of talk, but my
fear of it will not make me neglect the protection of my sister."

"But Sylvia," cried the boy, "you don't understand about this! A
woman _can't_ understand about these things----"

"You are mistaken, my dear cousin," said Sylvia--and her voice was
firm and decisive. "I _do_ understand."

"All right!" cried Clive, with sudden exasperation. "But let me tell
you this--Celeste is going to have a hard time getting any other man
to propose to her!"

"You mean, Clive, because so many of them are----?"

"Yes, if you must put it that way," he said.

There was a pause, then Sylvia went on: "Let us discuss the
practical problem, Clive. Don't you think it would have been better
if Roger, instead of going off and getting drunk, had set about
getting himself cured?"

The other looked at her, with evident surprise. "You mean in that
case Celeste might marry him?"

"You say the boys are all alike, Clive; and we can't turn our girls
into nuns. Why didn't some of you fellows point that out to Roger?"

"The truth is," said Clive, "we tried to." There was a little more
cordiality in his manner, since Sylvia had shown such a unexpected
amount of intelligence.

"Well?" she asked. "What then?"

"Why, he wouldn't listen to anything."

"You mean--because he was drunk?"

"No, we had him nearly sober. But you see--" And Clive paused for a
moment, painfully embarrassed. "The truth is, Roger had been to a
doctor, and been told it might take him a year or two to get cured."

"Clive!" she cried. "Clive! And you mean that in the face of that,
he proposed to go on and marry?"

"Well, Sylvia, you see--" And the young man hesitated still longer.
He was crimson with embarrassment, and suddenly he blurted out: "The
truth is, the doctor told him to marry. That was the only way he'd
ever get cured."

Sylvia was almost speechless. "Oh! Oh!" she cried, "I can't believe
you!"

"That's what the doctors tell you, Sylvia. You don't
understand--it's just as I told you, a woman can't understand. It's
a question of a man's nature----"

"But Clive--what about the wife and her health? Has the wife no
rights whatever?"

"The truth is, Sylvia, people don't take this disease with such
desperate seriousness. You understand, it isn't the one that
everybody knows is dangerous. It doesn't do any real harm----"

"Look at Elaine! Don't you call that real harm?"

"Yes, but that doesn't happen often, and they say there are ways it
can be prevented. Anyway, fellows just can't help it! God knows we'd
help it if we could."

Sylvia thought for a moment, and then came back to the immediate
question. "It's evident what Roger could do in this case. He is
young, and Celeste is still younger. They might wait a couple of
years and Roger might take care of himself, and in time it might be
properly arranged."

But Clive did not seem too warm to the proposition, and Sylvia, who
knew Roger Peyton, was not long in making out the reason. "You mean
you don't think he has character enough to keep straight for a year
or two?"

"To tell you the honest truth, we talked it out with him, and he
wouldn't make any promises."

To which Sylvia answered: "Very well, Clive--that settles it. You
can help me find some man for Celeste who loves her a little more
than that!"

17. That afternoon came Aunt Nannie, the Bishop's wife, in shining
chestnut-coloured silk to match a pair of shining chestnut-coloured
horses. Other people, it appeared, had been making inquiries into
Roger Peyton's story, and other people besides Clive Chilton had
been telling the truth. Aunt Nannie gathered the ladies of the
family in a hurried conference, and Sylvia was summoned to appear
before it--quite as in the days of her affair with Frank Shirley.

"Miss Margaret" and Aunt Varina were solemn and frightened, as of
old; and, as of old, Aunt Nannie did the talking. "Sylvia, do you
know what people are saying about you?"

"Yes, Aunt Nannie" said Sylvia.

"Oh, you do know?"

"Yes, of course. And I knew in advance that they would say it."

Something about the seraphic face of Sylvia, chastened by terrible
suffering, must have suggested to Mrs. Chilton the idea of caution.
"Have you thought of the humiliation this must inflict upon your
relatives?"

"I have found, Aunt Nannie," said Sylvia, "that there are worse
afflictions than being talked about."

"I am not sure," declared the other, "that anything could be worse
than to be the object of the kind of gossip that is now seething
around our family. It has been the tradition of our people to bear
their afflictions in silence."

"In this case, Aunt Nannie, it is obvious that silence would have
meant more afflictions, many more. I have thought of my sister--and
of all the other girls in our family, who may be led to sacrifice by
the ambitions of their relatives." Sylvia paused a moment, so that
her words might have effect.

Said the bishop's wife: "Sylvia, we cannot undertake to save the
world from the results of its sins. God has his own ways of
punishing men."

"Perhaps so, but surely God does not wish the punishment to fall
upon innocent young girls. For instance, Aunt Nannie, think of your
own daughters----"

"My daughters!" broke out Mrs. Chilton. And then, mastering her
excitement: "At least, you will permit me to look after my own
children."

"I noticed, my dear aunt, that Lucy May turned colour when Tom
Aldrich came into the room last night. Have you noticed anything?"

"Yes--what of it?"

"It means that Lucy May is falling in love with Tom."

"Why should she not? I certainly consider him an eligible man."

"And yet you know, Aunt Nannie, that he is one of Roger Peyton's
set. You know that he goes about town getting drunk with the gayest
of them, and you let Lucy May go on and fall in love with him! You
have taken no steps to find out about him--you have not warned your
daughter--"

Mrs. Chilton was crimson with agitation. "Warned my daughter! Who
ever heard of such a thing?"

Said Sylvia, quietly: "I can believe that you never heard of it--but
you will hear soon. The other day I had a talk with Lucy May--"

"Sylvia Castleman!" And then it seemed Mrs. Chilton reminded herself
that she was dealing with a dangerous lunatic. "Sylvia," she said,
in a suppressed voice, "you mean to tell me that you have been
poisoning my young daughter's mind--"

"You have brought her up well," said Sylvia, as her aunt stopped for
lack of words. "She did not want to listen to me. She said that
young girls ought not to know about such matters. But I pointed out
Elaine, and then she changed her mind--just as you will have to
change yours in the end, Aunt Nannie."

Mrs. Chilton sat glaring at her niece, her bosom heaving. Then
suddenly she turned her indignant eyes upon Mrs. Castleman.
"Margaret, cannot you stop this shocking business? I demand that the
tongues of gossip shall no longer clatter around the family of which
I am a member! My husband is the bishop of this diocese, and if
our ancient and untarnished name is of no importance to Sylvia van
Tuiver, then, perhaps the dignity and authority of the church may
have some weight----"

"Aunt Nannie," interrupted Sylvia, "it will do no good to drag Uncle
Basil into this matter. I fear you will have to face the fact that
from this time on your authority in our family is to be diminished.
You had more to do than any other person with driving me into the
marriage that has wrecked my life, and now you want to go on and do
the same thing for my sister and for your own daughters--to marry
them with no thought of anything save the social position of the
man. And in the same way you are saving up your sons to find rich
girls. You know that you kept Clive from marrying a poor girl in
this town a couple of years ago--and meantime it seems to be nothing
to you that he's going with men like Roger Peyton and Tom Aldrich,
learning all the vices the women in the brothels have to teach
him----"

Poor "Miss Margaret" had several times made futile efforts to check
her daughter's outburst. Now she and Aunt Varina started up at the
same time. "Sylvia! Sylvia! You must not talk like that to your
aunt!"

And Sylvia turned and gazed at them with her sad eyes. "From now
on," she said, "that is the way I am going to talk. You are a lot of
ignorant children. I was one too, but now I know. And I say to you:
Look at Elaine! Look at my little one, and see what the worship of
Mammon has done to one of the daughters of your family!"

18. After this, Sylvia had her people reduced to a state of terror.
She was an avenging angel, sent by the Lord to punish them for their
sins. How could one rebuke the unconventionality of an avenging
angel? On the other hand, of course, one could not help being in
agony, and letting the angel see it in one's face. Outside, there
were the tongues of gossip clattering, as Aunt Nannie had said;
quite literally everyone in Castleman County was talking about the
blindness of Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver's baby, and how, because of it,
the mother was setting out on a campaign to destroy the modesty of
the State. The excitement, the curiosity, the obscene delight of the
world came rolling back into Castleman Hall in great waves, that
picked up the unfortunate inmates and buffeted them about.

Family consultations were restricted, because it was impossible for
the ladies of the family to talk to the gentlemen about these
horrible things; but the ladies talked to the ladies, and the
gentlemen talked to the gentlemen, and each came separately to
Sylvia with their distress. Poor, helpless "Miss Margaret" would
come wringing her hands, and looking as if she had buried all her
children. "Sylvia! Sylvia! Do you realise that you are being
DISCUSSED?" That was the worst calamity that could befal a woman in
Castleman County--it summed up all possible calamities that could
befal her--to be "discussed." "They were discussing you once when
you wanted to marry Frank Shirley! And now--oh, now they will never
stop discussing you!"

Then would come the dear major. He loved his eldest daughter as he
loved nothing else in the world, and he was a just man at heart. He
could not meet her arguments--yes, she was right, she was right.
But then he would go away, and the waves of scandal and shame would
come rolling.

"My child," he pleaded, "have you thought what this thing is doing
to your husband? Do you realise that while you talk about protecting
other people, you are putting upon Douglas a brand that will follow
him through life?"

Uncle Mandeville came up from New Orleans to see his favourite
niece; and the wave smote him as he alighted from the train, and he
became so much excited that he went to the club and got drunk, and
then could not see his niece, but had to be carried off upstairs and
given forcible hypodermics. Cousin Clive told Sylvia about it
afterwards--how Uncle Mandeville refused to believe the truth, and
swore that he would shoot some of these fellows if they didn't stop
talking about his niece. Said Clive, with a grim laugh: "I told him:
'If Sylvia had her way, you'd shoot a good part of the men in the
town.'" He answered: "Well, by God, I'll do it--it would serve the
scoundrels right!" And he tried to get out of bed and get his pants
and his pistols--so that in the end it was necessary to telephone
for the major, and then for Barry Chilton and two of his gigantic
sons from their plantation.

Sylvia had her way, and talked things out with the agonised Celeste.
And the next day came Aunt Varina, hardly able to contain herself.
"Oh, Sylvia, such a horrible thing! To hear such words coming from
your little sister's lips--like the toads and snakes in the fairy
story! To think of these ideas festering in a young girl's brain!"
And then again: "Sylvia, your sister declares she will never go to a
party again! You are teaching her to hate men! You will make her a
STRONG-MINDED woman!"--that was another phrase they had summing up
a whole universe of horrors. Sylvia could not recall a time when she
had not heard that warning. "Be careful, dear, when you express an
opinion, always end it with a question: 'Don't you think so?' or
something like that, otherwise, men may get the idea that you are
'STRONG-MINDED'!"

Sylvia, in her girlhood, had heard vague hints and rumours which now
she was able to interpret in the light of her experience. In her
courtship days she had met a man who always wore gloves, even in the
hottest weather, and she had heard that this was because of some
affliction of the skin. Now, talking with the young matrons of her
own set, she learned that this man had married, and had since had to
take to a wheel-chair, while his wife had borne a child with a
monstrous deformed head, and had died of the ordeal and the shock.

Oh, the stories that one uncovered--right in one's own town, among
one's own set--like foul sewers underneath the pavements! The
succession of deceased generations, of imbeciles, epileptics,
paralytics! The innocent children born to a life-time of torment;
the women hiding their secret agonies from the world! Sometimes
women went all through life without knowing the truth about
themselves. There was poor Mrs. Valens, for example, who reclined
all day upon the gallery of one of the most beautiful homes in the
county, and showed her friends the palms of her hands, all covered
with callouses and scales, exclaiming: "What in the world do you
suppose can be the matter with me?" She had been a beautiful woman,
a "belle" of "Miss Margaret's" day; she had married a man who was
rich and handsome and witty--and a rake. Now he was drunk all the
time, and two of his children had died in hospital, and another had
arms that came out of joint, and had to be put in plaster of Paris
for months at a time. His wife, the one-time darling of society,
would lie on her couch and read the Book of Job until she knew it by
heart.

And could you believe it, when Sylvia came home, ablaze with
excitement over the story, she found that the only thing that her
relatives were able to see in it was the Book of Job! Under the
burden of her afflictions the woman had become devout; and how could
anyone fail to see in this the deep purposes of Providence revealed?
"Verily," said "Miss Margaret," "'whom the Lord loveth, He
chasteneth.' We are told in the Lord's Word that 'the sins of the
fathers shall be visited upon the children, even unto the third and
fourth generations,' and do you suppose the Lord would have told us
that, if He had not known there would be such children?"

19. I cannot pass over this part of my story without bringing
forward Mrs. Armistead, the town cynic, who constituted herself one
of Sylvia's sources of information in the crisis. Mrs. Sallie Ann
Armistead was the mother of two boys with whom Sylvia, as a child,
had insisted upon playing, in spite of the protests of the family.
"Wha' fo' you go wi' dem Armistead chillun, Mi' Sylvia?" would cry
Aunt Mandy, the cook. "Doan' you know they granddaddy done pick
cottin in de fiel' 'long o' me?" But while her father was picking
cotton, Sallie Ann had looked after her complexion and her figure,
and had married a rising young merchant. Now he was the wealthy
proprietor of a chain of "nigger stores," and his wife was the
possessor of the most dreaded tongue in Castleman County.

She was a person who, if she had been born a duchess, would have
made a reputation in history; the one woman in the county who had a
mind and was not afraid to have it known. She used all the tricks of
a duchess--lorgnettes, for example, with which she stared people
into a state of fright. She did not dare try anything like that on
the Castlemans, of course, but woe to the little people who crossed
her path! She had an eye that sought out every human weakness, and
such a wit that even her victims were fascinated. One of the legends
about her told how her dearest foe, a dashing young matron, had
died, and all the friends had gathered with their floral tributes.
Sallie Ann went in to review the remains, and when she came out a
sentimental voice inquired: "And how does our poor Ruth look?"

"Oh," was the answer, "as old and grey as ever!"

Now Mrs. Armistead stopped Sylvia in the street: "My dear, how goes
the eugenics campaign?"

And while Sylvia gazed, dumbfounded, the other went on as if she
were chatting about the weather: "You can't realise what a stir you
are making in our little frog pond. Come, see me, and let me tell
you the gossip! Do you know you've enriched our vocabulary?"

"I have made someone look up the meaning of eugenics, at least,"
answered Sylvia--having got herself together in haste.

"Oh, not only that, my dear. You have made a new medical term--the
'van Tuiver disease.' Isn't that interesting?"

For a moment Sylvia shrivelled before this flame from hell. But
then, being the only person who had ever been able to chain this
devil, she said: "Indeed? I hope that with so fashionable a name the
disease does not become an epidemic!"

Mrs. Armistead gazed at her, and then, in a burst of enthusiasm, she
exclaimed: "Sylvia Castleman, I have always insisted that one of the
most interesting women in the world was spoiled by the taint of
goodness in you."

She took Sylvia to her bosom, as it were. "Let us sit on the fence
and enjoy this spectacle! My dear, you can have no idea what an
uproar you are making! The young married women gather in their
boudoirs and whisper ghastly secrets to each other; some of them are
sure they have it, and some of them say they can trust their
husbands--as if any man could be trusted as far as you can throw a
bull by the horns! Did you hear about poor Mrs. Pattie Peyton, she
has the measles, but she sent for a specialist, and vowed she had
something else--she had read about it, and knew all the symptoms,
and insisted on having elaborate blood-tests! And little Mrs.
Stanley Pendleton has left her husband, and everybody says that's
the reason. The men are simply shivering in their boots--they steal
into the doctor's offices by the back-doors, and a whole car-load of
the boys have been shipped off to Hot Springs to be boiled--" And so
on, while Mrs. Armistead revelled in the sensation of strolling down
Main Street with Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver!

Then Sylvia would go home, and get the newest reactions of the
family to these horrors. Aunt Nannie, it seemed, made the discovery
that Basil, junr., her fifth son, was carrying on an intrigue with a
mulatto girl in the town; and she forbade him to go to Castleman
Hall, for fear lest Sylvia should worm the secret out of him; also
she shipped Lucy May off to visit a friend, and came and tried to
persuade Mrs. Chilton to do the same with Peggy and Maria, lest
Sylvia should somehow corrupt these children.

The bishop came, having been ordered to preach religion to his
wayward niece. Poor dear Uncle Basil--he had tried preaching
religion to Sylvia many years ago, and never could do it because he
loved her so well that with all his Seventeenth Century theology he
could not deny her chance of salvation. Now the first sight that met
his eyes when he came to see her was his little blind grand-niece.
And also he had in his secret heart the knowledge that he, a rich
and gay young planter before he became converted to Methodism, had
played with the fire of vice, and been badly burned. So Sylvia did
not find him at all the Voice of Authority, but just a poor,
hen-pecked, unhappy husband of a tyrannous Castleman woman.

The next thing was that "Miss Margaret" took up the notion that a
time such as this was not one for Sylvia's husband to be away from
her. What if people were to say that they had separated? There were
family consultations, and in the midst of them there came word that
van Tuiver was called North upon business. When the family
delegations came to Sylvia, to insist that she go with him, the
answer they got was that if they could not let her stay quietly at
home without asking her any questions, she would go off to New York
and live with a divorced woman Socialist!

"Of course, they gave up," she wrote me. "And half an hour ago poor
dear mamma came to my room and said: 'Sylvia, dear, we will let you
do what you want, but won't you please do one small favour for me?'
I got ready for trouble, and asked what she wanted. Her answer was:
'Won't you go with Celeste to the Young Matrons' Cotillion tomorrow
night, so that people won't think there's anything the matter?'"

20. Roger Peyton had gone off to Hot Springs, and Douglas van Tuiver
was in New York; so little by little the storms about Castleman Hall
began to abate in violence. Sylvia was absorbed with her baby, and
beginning to fit her life into that of her people. She found many
ways in which she could serve them--entertaining Uncle Mandeville to
keep him sober; checking the extravagrance of Celeste; nursing
Castleman Lysle through green apple convulsions. That was to be her
life for the future, she told herself, and she was making herself
really happy in it--when suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, came
an event that swept her poor little plans into chaos.

It was an afternoon in March, the sun was shining brightly and the
Southern springtime was in full tide, and Sylvia had had the old
family carriage made ready, with two of the oldest and gentlest
family horses, and took the girls upon a shopping expedition to
town. In the front seat sat Celeste, driving, with two of her
friends, and in the rear seat was Sylvia, with Peggy and Maria. When
an assemblage of allurements such as this stopped on the streets of
the town, the young men would come out of the banks and the offices
and gather round to chat. There would be a halt before an ice-cream
parlour, and a big tray of ices would be brought out, and the girls
would sit in the carriage and eat, and the boys would stand on the
curb and eat--undismayed by the fact that they had welcomed half a
dozen such parties during the afternoon. The statistics proved that
this was a thriving town, with rapidly increasing business, but
there was never so much business as to interfere with gallantries
like these.

Sylvia enjoyed the scene; it took her back to happy days, before
black care had taken his seat behind her. She sat in a kind of
dream, only half hearing the merriment of the young people, and only
half tasting her ice. How she loved this old town, with its streets
deep in black spring mud, its mud-plastered "buck-boards" and saddle
horses hitched at every telegraph pole! Its banks and stores and law
offices seemed shabbier after one had made the "grand tour," but
they were none the less dear to her for that. She would spend the
rest of her days in Castleman County, and the sunshine and peace
would gradually enfold her.

Such were her thoughts when the unforeseen event befel. A man on
horse-back rode down a side-street, crossing Main Street a little
way in front of her; a man dressed in khaki, with a khaki riding hat
pulled low over his face. He rode rapidly--appearing and vanishing,
so that Sylvia scarcely saw him--really did not see him with her
conscious mind at all. Her thoughts were still busy with dreams, and
the clatter of boys and girls; but deep within her had begun a
tumult--a trembling, a pounding of the heart, a clamouring under the
floors of her consciousness.

And slowly this excitement mounted. What was the matter, what had
happened? A man had ridden by, but why should a man--. Surely it
could not have been--no. There were hundreds of men in Castleman
County who wore khaki and rode horse-back, and had sturdy, thick-set
figures! But then, how could she make a mistake? How could her
instinct have betrayed her so? It was that same view of him as he
sat on a horse that had first thrilled her during the hunting party
years ago!

He had gone West, and had said that he would never return. He had
not been heard from in years. What an amazing thing, that a mere
glimpse of a man who looked and dressed and rode like him should be
able to set her whole being into such a panic! How futile became her
dreams of peace!

She heard the sound of a vehicle close beside her carriage, and
turned and found herself looking into the sharp eyes of Mrs.
Armistead. It happened that Sylvia was on the side away from the
curb, and there was no one talking to her; so Mrs. Armistead ran her
electric alongside, and had the stirring occasion to herself. Sylvia
looked into her face, so full of malice, and knew two things in a
flash: First, it really had been Frank Shirley riding by; and
second, Mrs. Armistead had seen him!

"Another candidate for your eugenics class!" said the lady.

Sylvia glanced at the young people and made sure they were paying no
attention. She might have made some remark that would have brought
them into the conversation, and delivered her from the torments of
this devil. But no, she had never quailed from Mrs. Armistead in her
life, and she would not now give her the satisfaction of driving off
to tell the town that Sylvia van Tuiver had seen Frank Shirley, and
had been overcome by it, and had taken refuge behind the skirts of
her little sisters!

"You can see I have my carriage full of pupils" she said, smilingly.

"How happy it must make you, Sylvia--coming home and meeting all
your old friends! It must set you trembling with ecstasy--angels
singing in the sky above you--little golden bells ringing all over
you!"

Sylvia recognised these phrases. They were part of an effort she had
made to describe the raptures of young love to her bosom friend,
Harriet Atkinson. And so Harriet had passed them on to the town! And
they had been cherished all these years.

She could not afford to recognise these illegitimate children of
romance. "Mrs. Armistead," she said, "I had no idea you had so much
poetry in you!"

"I am simply improvising, my dear--upon the colour in your cheeks at
present!"

There was no way save to be bold. "You couldn't expect me not to be
excited, Mrs. Armistead. You see, I had no idea he had come back
from the West."

"They say he left a wife there." remarked the lady, innocently.

"Ah!" said Sylvia. "Then he will not be staying long, presumably."

There was a pause; all at once Mrs. Armistead's voice became gentle
and sympathetic. "Sylvia," she said, "don't imagine that I fail to
appreciate what is going on in your heart. I know a true romance
when I see one. If only you could have known in those days what you
know now, there might have been one beautiful love story that did
not end as a tragedy."

You would have thought the lady's better self had suddenly been
touched. But Sylvia knew her; too many times she had seen this
huntress trying to lure a victim out of his refuge.

"Yes, Mrs. Armistead," she said, gently. "But I have the consolation
at least of being a martyr to science."

"In what way?"

"Have you forgotten the new medical term that I have given to the
world?"

And Mrs. Armistead looked at her for a moment aghast. "My God,
Sylvia!" she whispered; and then--an honest tribute: "You certainly
can take care of yourself!"

"Yes," said Sylvia. "Tell that to my other friends in town." And so,
at last, Mrs. Armistead started her machine, and this battle of
hell-cats came to an end.

21. Sylvia rode home in a daze, answering without hearing the
prattle of the children. She was appalled at the emotions that
possessed her--that the sight of Frank Shirley riding down the
street could have affected her so! She forgot Mrs. Armistead, she
forgot the whole world, in her dismay over her own state of mind.
Having dismissed Frank from her life and her thoughts forever, it
seemed to her preposterous that she should be at the mercy of such
an excitement.

She found herself wondering about her family. Did they know that
Frank Shirley had returned? Would they have failed to mention it to
her? For a moment she told herself it would not have occurred to
them she could have any interest in the subject. But no--they were
not so _naive_--the Castleman women--as their sense of propriety
made them pretend to be! But how stupid of them not to give her
warning! Suppose she had happened to meet Frank face to face, and in
the presence of others! She must certainly have betrayed her
excitement; and just at this time, when the world had the Castleman
family under the microscope!

She told herself that she would avoid such difficulty in future; she
would stay at home until Frank had gone away. If he had a wife in
the West, presumably he had merely come for a visit to his mother
and sisters. And then Sylvia found herself in an argument with
herself. What possible difference could it make that Frank Shirley
had a wife? So long as she, Sylvia, had a husband, what else
mattered? Yet she could not deny it--it brought her a separate and
additional pang that Frank Shirley should have married. What sort of
wife could he have found--he, a stranger in the far West? And why
had he not brought his wife home to his people?

When she stepped out of the carriage, it was with her mind made up
that she would stay at home until all danger was past. But the next
afternoon a neighbour called up to ask Sylvia and Celeste to come
and play cards in the evening. It was not a party, Mrs. Witherspoon
explained to "Miss Margaret," who answered the 'phone; just a few
friends and a good time, and she did so hope that Sylvia was not
going to refuse. The mere hint of the fear that Sylvia might refuse
was enough to excite Mrs. Castleman. Why should Sylvia refuse? So
she accepted the invitation, and then came to plead with her
daughter--for Celeste's sake, and for the sake of all her family, so
that the world might see that she was not crushed by misfortune!

There were reasons why the invitation was a difficult one to
decline. Mrs. Virginia Witherspoon was the daughter of a Confederate
general whose name you read in every history-book; and she had a
famous old home in the country which was falling about her ears--her
husband being seldom sober enough to know what was happening. She
had also three blossoming daughters, whom she must manage to get out
of the home before the plastering of the drawing-room fell upon the
heads of their suitors; so that the ardour of her husband-hunting
was one of the jokes of the State. Naturally, under such
circumstances, the Witherspoons had to be treated with consideration
by the Castlemans. One might snub rich Yankees, and chasten the
suddenly-prosperous; but a family with an ancient house in ruins,
and with faded uniforms and battle-scarred sabres in the
cedar-chests in its attic--such a family can with difficulty
overdraw its social bank account.

Dolly Witherspoon, the oldest daughter, had been Sylvia's rival for
the palm as the most beautiful girl in Castleman County. And Sylvia
had triumphed, and Dolly had failed. So, in her secret heart she
hated Sylvia, and the mother hated her; and yet--such was the social
game--they had to invite Sylvia and her sister to their
card-parties, and Sylvia and her sister had to go. They had to go
and be the most striking figures there: Celeste, slim and pale from
sorrow, virginal, in clinging white chiffon; and Sylvia, regal and
splendid, shimmering like a mermaid in a gown of emerald green.

The mermaid imagined that she noticed a slight agitation underneath
the cordiality of her hostess. The next person to greet her was Mrs.
Armistead; and Sylvia was sure that she did not imagine the
suppressed excitement in that lady's manner. But even while she was
speculating and suspecting, she was led toward the drawing-room. It
was late, her hostess explained; the other guests were waiting, so
if they did not mind, the play would start at once. Celeste was to
sit at that table over there, with Mr. Witherspoon's crippled
brother, and old Mr. Perkins, who was deaf; and Sylvia was to come
this way--the table in the corner. Sylvia moved toward it, and Dolly
Witherspoon and her sister, Emma, greeted her cordially, and then
stepped out of the way to let her to her seat; and Sylvia gave one
glance--and found herself face to face with Frank Shirley!

22. Frank's face was scarlet; and Sylvia had a moment of blind
terror, when she wanted to turn and fly. But there about her was the
circle of her enemies; a whole roomful of people, breathless with
curiosity, drinking in with eyes and ears every hint of distress
that she might give. And the next morning the whole town would, in
imagination, attend the scene!

"Good-evening, Julia," said Sylvia, to Mrs. Witherspoon's youngest
daughter, the other lady at the table. "Good-evening, Malcolm"--to
Malcolm McCallum, an old "beau" of hers. And then, taking the seat
which Malcolm sprang to move out for her, "How do you do, Frank?"

Frank's eyes had fallen to his lap. "How do you do?" he murmured.
The sound of his voice, low and trembling, full of pain, was like
the sound of some old funeral bell to Sylvia; it sent the blood
leaping in torrents to her forehead. Oh, horrible, horrible!

For a moment her eyes fell like his, and she shuddered, and was
beaten. But there was the roomful of people, watching; there was
Mrs. Armistead, there were the Witherspoon women gloating. She
forced a tortured smile to her lips, and asked, "What are we
playing?"

"Oh, didn't you know that?" said Julia. "Progressive whist."

"Thank-you," said Sylvia. "When do we begin?" And she looked
about--anywhere but at Frank Shirley, with his face grown so old in
four years.

No one said anything, no one made a move. Was everybody in the room
conspiring to break her down? "I thought we were late," she said,
desperately; and then, with another effort--"Shall I cut?" she
asked, of Julia.

"If you please," said the girl; but she did not make a motion to
pass the cards. Her manner seemed to say, You may cut all night, but
it won't help you to rob me of this satisfaction.

Sylvia made a still more determined effort. If the game was to be
postponed indefinitely, so that people might watch her and
Frank--well, she would have to find something to talk about.

"It is a surprise to see you again, Frank Shirley!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he said. His voice was a mumble, and he did not lift his
eyes.

"You have been in the West, I understand?"

"Yes," again; but still he did not lift his eyes.

Sylvia managed to lift hers as far as his cravat; and she saw in it
an old piece of imitation jewelry which she had picked up once on
the street, and had handed to him in jest. He had worn it all these
years! He had not thrown it away--not even when she had thrown him
away!

Again came a surge of emotion; and out of the mist she looked about
her and saw the faces of tormenting demons, leering. "Well," she
demanded, "are we going to play?"

"We were waiting for you to cut," said Julia, graciously; and
Sylvia's fury helped to restore her self-posession. She cut the
cards; and fate was kind, sparing both her and Frank the task of
dealing.

But then a new difficulty arose. Julia dealt, and thirteen cards lay
in front of Frank Shirley; but he did not seem to know that he ought
to pick them up. And when the opposing lady called him to time, in
what seemed an unnecessarily penetrating voice, he found that he was
physically unable to get the cards from the table. And when with his
fumbling efforts he got them into a bunch, he could not straighten
them out--to say nothing of the labour of sorting them according to
suit, which all whist-players know to be an indispensable
preliminary to the game. When the opposing lady prodded him again,
Frank's face changed from vivid scarlet to a dark and alarming
purple.

Miss Julia led the tray of clubs; and Frank, whose turn came next,
spilled three cards upon the table, and finally selected from them
the king of hearts to play--hearts being trumps. "But you have a
club there, Mr. Shirley," said his opponent; something that was
pardonable, inasmuch as the nine of clubs lay face up where he had
shoved it aside.

"Oh--I beg pardon," he stammered, and took back his king, and
reached into his hand and pulled out the six of clubs, and a diamond
with it.

It was evident that this could not go on. Sylvia might be equal to
the emergency, but Frank was not. He was too much of a human being
and too little of a social automaton. Something must be done.

"Don't they play whist out West, Mr. Shirley," asked Julia, still
smiling benevolently.

And Sylvia lowered her cards. "Surely, my dear, you must
understand," she said, gently. "Mr. Shirley is too much embarrassed
to think about cards."

"Oh!" said the other, taken aback. (_L'audace, touljours l'audace!_
runs the formula!)

"You see," continued Sylvia, "this is the first time that Frank has
seen me in more than three years. And when two people have been as
much in love as he and I were, they are naturally disturbed when
they meet, and cannot put their minds upon a game of cards."

Julia was speechless. And Sylvia let her glance wander casually
about the room. She saw her hostess and her daughters standing
watching; and near the wall at the other side of the room stood the
head-devil, who had planned this torment.

"Mrs. Armistead," Sylvia called, "aren't you going to play
to-night?" Of course everybody in the room heard this; and after it,
anyone could have heard a pin drop.

"I'm to keep score," said Mrs. Armistead.

"But it doesn't need four to keep score," objected Sylvia--and
looked at the three Witherspoon ladies.

"Dolly and Emma are staying out," said Mrs. Witherspoon. "Two of our
guests did not come."

"Well," Sylvia exclaimed, "that just makes it right! Please let them
take the place of Mr. Shirley and myself. You see, we haven't seen
each other for three or four years, and it's hard for us to get
interested into a game of cards."

The whole room caught its breath at once; and here and there one
heard a little squeak of hysteria, cut short by some one who was not
sure whether it was a joke or a scandal. "Why--Sylvia!" stammered
Mrs. Witherspoon, completely staggered.

Then Sylvia perceived that she was mistress of the scene. There came
the old rapture of conquest, that made her social genius. "We have
so much that we want to talk about," she said, in her most winning
voice. "Let Dolly and Emma take our places, and we will sit on the
sofa in the other room and chat. You and Mrs. Armistead come and
chaperone us. Won't you do that, please?"

"Why--why----" gasped the bewildered lady.

"I'm sure that you will both be interested to hear what we have to
say to each other; and you can tell everybody about it
afterwards--and that will be so much better than having the
card-game delayed any more."

And with this side-swipe Sylvia arose. She stood and waited, to make
sure that her ex-fianc� was not too paralysed to follow. She led him
out through the tangle of card-tables; and in the door-way she
stopped and waited for Mrs. Armistead and Mrs. Witherspoon, and
literally forced these two ladies to come with her out of the room.

23. Do you care to hear the details of the punishment which Sylvia
administered to the two conspirators? She took them to the sofa, and
made Frank draw up chairs for them, and when she had got comfortably
seated, she proceeded to talk to Frank just as gently and sincerely
and touchingly as she would have talked if there had been nobody
present. She asked about all that had befallen him, and when she
discovered that he was still not able to chat, she told him about
herself, about her baby, who was beautiful and dear, even if she was
blind, and about all the interesting things she had seen in Europe.
When presently the old ladies showed signs of growing restless, she
put hand cuffs on them and chained them to their chairs.

"You see," she said, "it would never do for Mr. Shirley and myself
to talk without a chaperon. You got me into this situation, you
know, and papa and mamma would never forgive you."

"You are mistaken, Sylvia!" cried Mrs. Witherspoon. "Mr. Shirley so
seldom goes out, and he had said he didn't think he would come!"

"I am willing to accept that explanation," said Sylvia, politely,
"but you must help me out now that the embarrassing accident has
happened."

Nor did it avail Mrs. Witherspoon to plead her guests and their
score. "You may be sure they don't care about the score," said
Sylvia. "They'd much prefer you stayed here, so that you can tell
them how Frank and I behaved."

And then, while Mrs. Witherspoon was getting herself together,
Sylvia turned upon the other conspirator. "We will now hold one of
my eugenics classes," she said, and added, to Frank, "Mrs. Armistead
told me that you wanted to join my class."

"I don't understand," replied Frank, at a loss.

"I will explain," said Sylvia. "It is not a very refined joke they
have in the town. Mrs. Armistead meant to say that she credits a
disgraceful story that was circulated about you when we were
engaged, and which my people made use of to make me break our
engagement. I am glad to have a chance to tell you that I have
investigated and satisfied myself that the story was not true. I
want to apologise to you for ever having believed it; and I am sure
that Mrs. Armistead may be glad of this opportunity to apologise for
having said that she believed it."

"I never said that I believed it!" cried Sallie Ann.

"No, you didn't, Mrs. Armistead--you would not be so crude as to say
it directly. You merely dropped a hint, which would lead everybody
to understand that you believed it."

Sylvia paused, just long enough to let the wicked lady suffer, but
not long enough to let her find a reply. "When you tell your friends
about this scene," she continued, "please make clear that I did not
drop hints about anything, but said exactly what I meant--that the
story is false, so far as it implies any evil done by Mr. Shirley,
and that I am deeply ashamed of myself for having ever believed it.
It is all in the past now, of course--we are both of us married, and
we shall probably never meet again. But it will be a help to us in
future to have had this little talk--will it not, Frank?"

There was a pause, while Sallie Ann Armistead recovered from her
dismay, and got back a little of her fighting power. Suddenly she
rose: "Virginia," she said, firmly, "you are neglecting your
guests."

"I don't think you ought to go until Frank has got himself
together," said Sylvia. "Frank, can you sort your cards now?"

"Virginia!" commanded Sallie Ann, imperiously. "Come!"

Mrs. Witherspoon rose, and so did Sylvia. "We can't stay here
alone," said she. "Frank, will you take Mrs. Witherspoon in?" And
she gently but firmly took Mrs. Armistead's arm, and so they marched
back into the drawing-room.

Dolly and Emma had progressed to separate tables, it developed, so
that the ordeal of Frank and Sylvia was over. Through the remainder
of the evening Sylvia chatted and played, and later partook of
refreshments with Malcolm McCallum, and mildly teased that
inconsolable bachelor, quite as in the old days. Now and then she
stole a glance at Frank Shirley, and saw that he was holding up his
end; but he kept away from her, and she never even caught his eye.

At last the company broke up, and Sylvia thanked her hostess for a
most enjoyable evening. She stepped into the motor with Celeste, and
sat with compressed lips, answering in monosyllables her "little
sister's" flood of excited questions--"Oh, Sylvia, didn't you feel
perfectly _terrible?_ Oh, sister, I felt _thrills_ running up and
down my back! Sister, what _did_ you say to him? Sister, do you know
old Mr. Perkins kept leaning over me and asking what was happening;
and how could I shout into his deaf ear that everybody was stopping
to hear what you were saying to Frank Shirley?"

At the end of the ride, there was Aunt Varina waiting up as
usual--to renew her own youth in the story of the evening, what this
person had worn and what that person had said. But Sylvia left her
sister to tell the story, and fled to her room and locked the door,
and flung herself upon the bed and gave way to a torrent of weeping.

Half an hour later Celeste went up, and finding that the door
between her room and Sylvia's was unlocked, opened it softly, and
stood listening. Finally she stole to her sister's side and put her
arm about her. "Never mind, sister dear," she whispered, solemnly,
"I know how it is! We women all have to suffer!"

END