independent and self-reliant, which stirred his pulses. He had been a close and absorbed student, and his observation of the other sex had been largely indifferent and formal. He knew, of course, that the modern woman had sloughed off helplessness and docile dependence on man, but like an ostrich with its head in the sand he had chosen to form a mental conception of what she was like, and he had pictured her either as a hoyden or an unsympathetic blue-stocking. This trig, well-developed beauty, with her sensible, alert face and capable manner was an agreeable revelation. If she was a type, he had neglected his opportunities. But the present was his at all events. Here was companionship worthy of the name, and a stimulating vindication of the success of woman’s revolt from her own weakness and subserviency. When at the conclusion of their game they sat down on a bank overlooking the last hole and connected conversation took the place of desultory dialogue between shots, he was struck by her common sense, her enthusiasm, and her friendliness. He gathered that she was eager to support herself by some form of intellectual occupation, preferably teaching or writing, and that she had come to Rock Ledge with Mrs. Spinney in order to talk over quietly whether she might better take courses of study at Radcliffe or Wellesley, or learn the Kindergarten methods and at the same time apply herself diligently to preparation for creative work. Of one thing she was certain, that she did not wish to rust out in Westford. While her father lived, of course her nominal home would be there, but she felt that she could not be happy with nothing but household employment in a small town out of touch with the movement and breadth of modern life. The substance of this information was confided to me by Morgan before we went to bed that night.
It is easy and natural for two young people vegetating at a summer resort to become exceedingly intimate in three or four days, especially when facility for intercourse is promoted and freedom from interruption guaranteed by a self-sacrificing accessory. My complicity at the outset had been pure off-hand pleasantry, but by the end of thirty-six hours it was obvious to me that Morgan’s interest was that of a man deeply infatuated. Seeing that the two young people were of marriageable age and free, so far as I knew, from disqualifying blemishes which would justify me in putting either on guard against the other, I concluded that it behooved me as a loyal friend to keep Mrs. Spinney occupied and out of the way. Consequently Morgan and Mrs. Spaulding were constantly together during the ensuing ten days, and so skilfully did I behave that the innocent pair regarded the flirtation which I was carrying on as a superb joke–a case of a banterer caught in the toils, and Mrs. Spinney’s manners suggested that she was agreeably flattered.
Morgan’s statement that he had never contemplated marriage was true, and yet in the background of his dream of the future lurked a female vision whose sympathy and companionship were to be the spur of his ambition and the mainstay of his courage. Had he found her? He did not need to ask himself the question more than once. He knew that he had, and, knowing that he was deeply in love, he turned to face the two questions by which he was confronted. First, would she have him? Second, in case she would, was he in a position to ask her to marry him, or, more concretely, could he support her? The first could be solved only by direct inquiry. The answer to the second depended on whether the views which he had expressed to me as to the possibilities of matrimonial content in circumstances like his were correct. Or was I right, and did it all depend upon the woman? But what if it did? Was not this just the woman to sympathize entirely with his ambition and to keep him up to the mark in case the shoe pinched? There was no doubt of her enthusiasm and interest when in the course of one of their walks he had confided to her that he had dedicated his life to close scientific investigation. Well, he would lay the situation squarely before her and she could give him his answer. If she was the kind of woman he believed her to be and she loved him and had faith in him, would the prospect of limited means appall her? He felt sure that it would not.
By the light of subsequent events, being something of a mind reader, I know the rest of their story as well as though I had been present in the flesh.
Before the end of the fortnight he made a clean breast of his love and of his scruples. He chose an occasion when they had strolled far along the shore and were resting among picturesque rocks overlooking the ocean. She listened shyly, as became a woman, but once or twice while he was speaking she looked up at him with unmistakable ardor and joy in her brown eyes which let him know that his feelings were reciprocated before she confessed it by speech. He was so determined to make clear to her what was in store for her if she accepted him that without waiting for an answer to his burning avowal he proceeded to point out and to reiterate that the scantiest kind of living so far as creature comforts were concerned was all which he could promise either for the present or for the future.
When, having satisfied his conscience, he ceased speaking, Edna turned toward him and with a sigh of sentiment swept back the low bands of profuse dark hair from her temples as though by the gesture she were casting all anxieties and hindrances to the winds. “How strange it is!” she murmured. “The last thing which I supposed could happen to me in coming here was that I should marry. But I am in love–in love with you; and to turn one’s back on that blessing would be to squander the happiness of existence.” She was silent a moment. Then she continued gravely, “As you know, I was engaged–married once before. How long ago it seems! I thought once, I believed once, that I could never love again. Dear Horace, how wrapped up we were in each other! But I was a child then, and–and it seems as though all I know of the real world has been learned since. I must not distrust–I will not refuse the opportunity to make you happy and to become happier myself by resisting the impulse of my heart. I love you–Morgan.”
“Thank God! But are you sure, Edna, that you have counted the cost of marrying me?”
“Oh, yes! We shall manage very well, I think,” she answered, speaking slowly and contracting a little her broad brow in the attempt to argue dispassionately. “It isn’t as if you had nothing. You have fifteen hundred dollars and your salary, nearly two thousand more. Five years ago that would have seemed to me wealth, and now, of course, I understand that it isn’t; and five years ago I suppose I would have married a man if I loved him no matter how poor he was. But to-day I am wiser–that’s the word, isn’t it? For I recognize that I might not be happy as a mere drudge, and to become one would conflict with what I feel that I owe myself in the way of–shall I call it civilizing and self-respecting comfort? So you see if you hadn’t a cent, I might feel it was more sensible and better for us both to wait or to give each other up. But it isn’t a case of that at all. We’ve plenty to start on–plenty, and more than I’m accustomed to; and by the time we need more, if we do need more, you will be famous.”
“But it’s just that, Edna,” he interjected quickly. “I may never be famous. I may be obscure, and we may be poor, relatively speaking, all our lives,” and he sighed dismally.
“Oh, yes, you will, and oh, no, we shan’t!” she exclaimed buoyantly. “Surely, you don’t expect me to believe that you are not going to succeed and to make a name for yourself? We must take some chances–if that is a chance. You have told me yourself that you intended to succeed.”
“In the end, yes.”
“Why, then, shouldn’t I believe it, too? It would be monstrous–disloyal and unromantic not to. I won’t listen to a word more on that score, please. And the rest follows, doesn’t it? We are marrying because we love each other and believe we can help each other, and I am sure one of the reasons why we love each other is that we both have enthusiasm and find life intensely absorbing and admire that in the other. There’s the great difference between me now and what I was at eighteen. The mere zest of existence seems to me so much greater than it used. There are so many interesting things to do, so many interesting things which we would like to do. And now we shall be able to do them together, shan’t we?” she concluded, her eyes lighted with confident happiness, her cheeks mantling partly from love, partly, perhaps, from a sudden consciousness that she was almost playing the wooer.
Morgan was equal to the occasion. “Until death do us part, Edna. This is the joy of which I have dreamed for years and wondered if it could ever be mine,” he whispered, as he looked into her face with all the ardor of his soul and kissed her on the lips.
That evening he hooked his arm in mine on the piazza after dinner and said, “You builded better than you knew, George. We are engaged, and she’s the one woman in the world for me. I’ve told her everything– everything, and she isn’t afraid.”
“And you give me the credit of it. That’s Christian and handsome. I’ll say one thing for her which any one can see from her face, that she has good looks and intelligence. As to the rest, you monopolized her so that our acquaintance is yet to begin.”
“It shall begin at once,” said Morgan, with a happy laugh. “But what about you, George?”
“I leave for New York to-night. Now that the young lovers have plighted their troth my presence is no longer necessary. A sudden telegram will arrive.”
“But Mrs. Spinney? We have begun to–er–hope–“
“Hope?”
“Begun to think–wondered if–“
“I were going to marry a woman several years my senior who has the effrontery to believe that she can lecture acceptably on the entire range of literary and social knowledge from the Troubadours and the Crusades to Rudyard Kipling and the Referendum? Such is the reward of disinterested self-sacrifice!”
“Forgive me, George. I knew at first that you were trying to do me a good turn, but–but you were so persistent that you deceived us. I’m really glad there’s nothing in it.”
“Thanks awfully.” Then bending a sardonic glance on my friend, I murmured sententiously:
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is Winged Cupid painted blind.”
* * * * *
“Edna, why don’t you take a more active interest in these club gatherings?” asked Morgan Russell one afternoon eight years subsequent to their marriage. He had laid aside his work for the day, and having joined his wife on the piazza was glancing over a printed notice of a meeting which she had left on the table. “I’m inclined to think you would get considerable diversion from them, and the study work at home would be in your line.”
Edna was silent a moment. She bent her head over her work–a child’s blouse–that he might not notice that she was biting her lip, and she managed to impart a dispassionate and almost jaunty tone to the indictment which uttered.
“Every now and then, Morgan, you remind me of Edward Casaubon in ‘Middlemarch.’ Not often, but every now and then lately.”
“That selfish, fusty, undiscerning bookworm?”
“You’re not selfish and you’re not fusty; but you remind me of him when you make remarks like your first.” She brushed a caterpillar from her light summer skirt, and noticing the draggled edge held it up. “There’s one answer to your question about taking an active interest in clubs. There are twenty others, but this is one.”
Her husband appeared puzzled. He looked well, but pale and thin, as though accustomed to close application.
“I mean I can’t afford it,” she added.
“I see. Then it was stupid of me–Casaubonish, I dare say, to have spoken. I was only trying to put a little more variety into your life because I realized that you ought to have it.”
Edna gave a faint sigh by way of acquiescence. Marriage had changed her but little in appearance. She looked scarcely older, and her steady eyes, broad brow, and ready smile gave the same effect of determination and spirit, though she seemed more sober.
“I’m a little dull myself and that makes me captious,” she asserted. Then dropping her work and clasping her hands she looked up earnestly at him and said, “Don’t you see the impossibility of my being active in my club, Morgan? I go to it, of course, occasionally, so as not to drop out of things altogether, but in order to take a prominent part and get the real benefit of the meetings a woman needs time and money. Not so very much money, nor so very much time, but more of either than I have at my disposal. Of course, I would like, if we had more income–and what is much more essential–more time, to accept some of the invitations which I receive to express my ideas before the club, but it is out of the question. I have a horror of superficiality just as you have.”
“A sad fate; a poor man’s wife,” said Morgan with a smile which, though tranquil, was wan.
“And you warned me. Don’t think for a moment I’m complaining or regretting. I was only answering your question. Do you realize, dear, we shall have been married eight years day after to-morrow?”
“So we have, Edna. And what a blessing our marriage has been to me!”
“We have been very happy.” Then, she said, after a pause, as though she had been making up her mind to put the question, “You are really content, Morgan?”
“Content?” he echoed, “with you, Edna?”
“Not with me as me, but with us both together; with our progress, and with what we stand for as human beings?”
“I think so. That is, relatively speaking, and provided I understand correctly what you mean.”
She had not resumed her work, and her eager, resolute expression indicated that she was preparing to push the conversation to a more crucial point.
“I suppose what I mean is, would you, if we were going to start over again, do just as you have–devote yourself to science?”
“Oh!” Morgan flushed. “I don’t see the use of considering that conundrum. I have devoted myself to science and there is no help for it, even if I were dissatisfied.”
“No present help.”
“No help at any time, Edna. But why resurrect this ghost? We burned our bridges at the altar.”
“We did. And don’t misunderstand me, dear. I’m not flinching, I’m not even regretting, as I said to you before. Perhaps it may seem to you brutal–which is worse than Casaubonish–to ask you such a question. Still, we’re husband and wife, and on an anniversary like this why isn’t it sensible to look matters squarely in the face, and consider whether we’ve been wise or not? You ask the use. Are we not both seeking the truth?”
“Just as a tradesman takes an account of stock to ascertain whether he is bankrupt. I suppose you are thinking of the children and–and you admitted that you are a little tired yourself.”
“I wasn’t thinking of any one. I was simply considering the question as an abstract proposition–by the light, of course, of our experience.”
“It is hard for you, Edna; yes, it is hard. I often think of it.”
“But I shouldn’t mind its being hard if I were sure we were wise–justified.”
Morgan leaned toward her and said with grave intensity, “How, dear, are the great truths of science to be ascertained unless men–men and their wives–are willing to delve lovingly, to sacrifice comforts, and even endure hardships in pursuit of them?”
Edna drew a deep breath. “But you must answer me a question. How are children to be educated, and their minds, bodies, and manners guarded and formed in the ideal way on a small income such as ours?”
“I thought it was the children.”
“It isn’t merely the children. It’s myself and you–you, Morgan. It breaks my heart to see you pale, thin, and tired most of the time. You like good food and we can’t afford to keep a decent cook. You have to consider every cent you spend, and the consequence is you have no amusement, and if you take a vacation, it is at some cheap place where you are thoroughly uncomfortable. And, of course, it is the children, too. If you, with your talents had gone into business or followed medicine or the law, like your friend Mr. Randall, we should have an income by this time which–well, for one thing, we should be able to keep the children at the seaside until October, and for another have Ernest’s teeth straightened.”
“Perhaps I can manage both of those, as it is. But, Edna, what’s the advantage of considering what might have been? Besides, you haven’t answered my question.”
“I know it,” she said slowly. “You mustn’t misunderstand me, Morgan. I’m very proud of you, and I appreciate fully your talent, your self-sacrifice, and your modesty. I thought you entirely right the other day in repulsing that odious reporter who wished to make a public character of you before you were ready. I’m content to wait–to wait forever, and I shall be happy in waiting. But, on the other hand, I’ve never been afraid to face the truth. It’s my way. I’ve done so all my life; and my growth mentally and morally has come through my willingness to acknowledge my mistakes. Every one says it is fine for other people to starve for the sake of discovery, but how few are willing to do it themselves! If we were in a book, the world would admire us, but sometimes I can’t help wondering if we would not be happier and more satisfactory human products if you had done something which brought you rewards more commensurate with your abilities. I’m merely thinking aloud, Morgan. I’m intensely interested, as you know, in the problems of life, and this is one of them.”
“But you know foreigners claim that we as a nation are not really interested in culture and knowledge, but only in their money value. What becomes of the best scholarship if we are ready to admit it?”
“Ah! but Professor Drayson told me only the other day that abroad, in Germany, for instance, they give their learned professors and savants suitable salaries and make much of them socially, because it is recognized that otherwise they wouldn’t be willing to consecrate themselves to their work.”
“Then the essential thing for me to do is to invent some apparatus which I can sell to a syndicate for half a million dollars.”
“That would be very nice, Morgan,” she answered, smiling brightly. “But you know perfectly well that if we go on just as we are to the end, I shall be thoroughly proud of you, and thoroughly happy–relatively speaking.” So saying she put her arm around her husband’s neck and kissed him affectionately.
Although this conversation was more definite than any which had taken place between them, Morgan was not seriously distressed. He knew that it was his wife’s method to think aloud, and he knew that she would be just as loyal to him and no less cheerful because of it. She was considering a problem in living, and one which indisputably had two sides. He had always been aware of it, and the passage of time without special achievement on his part had brought it more pointedly before him now that there were two children and the prospect of a third. He was absorbed in his vocation; and the lack of certain comforts– necessities, perhaps–though inconvenient, would not have weighed appreciably in the scale were he the only one affected. But though he was pursuing his course along the path of investigation eagerly and doing good work without a shadow of disappointment, he was aware not merely that he had not as yet made a concrete valuable discovery, but might never do so. This possibility did not appall him, but he recognized that it was a part of the circumstances of his particular case viewed from the standpoint of a contemplative judgment on his behavior. He was succeeding, but was his success of a character to justify depriving his wife and children of what might have been theirs but for his selection? The discussion was purely academic, for he had made his choice, but he did not question Edna’s privilege to weigh the abstract proposition, and accordingly was not depressed by her frankness.
It happened a few weeks later that Edna received a letter from Mrs. Sidney Dale inviting her and Morgan to spend a fortnight at the Dale spring and autumn home on the Hudson. Edna had seen Mrs. Dale but twice since their trip abroad. She had been unable to accept a previous similar invitation, but on this occasion Morgan insisted that she should go. He argued that it would refresh and rest her, and he agreed to conduct her to Cliffside and remain for a day or two himself.
Cliffside proved to be a picturesque, spacious house artistically situated at the vantage point of a domain of twenty acres and furnished with the soothing elegancies of modern ingenuity and taste. Among the attractions were a terrace garden, a well-accoutred stable, a tennis court, and a steam yacht. Mrs. Dale, who had prefaced her invitation by informing her husband that she never understood exactly why she was so fond of Edna and feared that the Russells were very poor, sat, a vision of successive cool, light summer garments, doing fancy work on the piazza, and talking in her engaging, brightly indolent manner. Morgan found Mr. Dale, who was taking a vacation within telephonic reach of New York, a genial, well-informed man with the effect of mental strength and reserve power. They became friendly over their cigars, and a common liking for old-fashioned gardens. On the evening before he departed, Morgan, in the course of conversation, expressed an opinion concerning certain electrical appliances before the public in the securities of which his host was interested. The banker listened with keen attention, put sundry questions which revealed his own acuteness, and in pursuance of the topic talked to Morgan graphically until after midnight of the large enterprises involving new mechanical discoveries in which his firm was engaged.
Morgan was obliged to go home on the following morning, but Edna remained a full fortnight. On the day of her return Morgan was pleased to perceive that the trip had evidently done her good. Not only did she look brighter and fresher, but there was a sparkling gayety in her manner which suggested that the change had served as a tonic. Morgan did not suspect that this access of spirits was occasioned by the secret she was cherishing until she confronted him with it in the evening.
“My dear,” she said, “you would never guess what has happened, so I won’t ask you to try. I wonder what you will think of it. Mr. Dale is going to ask you–has asked you to go into his business–to become one of his partners.”
“Asked me?”
“Yes. It seems you made a good impression on him from the first–especially the last evening when you sat up together. It came about through Mrs. Dale, I think. That is, Mr. Dale has been looking about for some time for what he calls the right sort of man to take in, for one of his partners has died recently and the business is growing; and Mrs. Dale seems to have had us on her mind because she had got it into her head that we were dreadfully poor. I don’t think she has at all a definite idea of what your occupation is. But the long and short of it is her husband wants you. He told me so himself in black and white, and you will receive a letter from him within a day or two.”
“Wants me to become a broker?”
“A banker and broker.”
“And–er–give up my regular work?”
Edna nervously smoothed out the lap of her dress as though she realized that she might be inflicting pain, but she raised her steady eyes and said with pleasant firmness:
“You would have to, of course, wouldn’t you? But Mr. Dale explained that you would be expected to keep a special eye on the mechanical and scientific interests of the firm. He said he had told you about them. So all that would be in your line of work, wouldn’t it?”
“I understand–I understand. It would amount to nothing from the point of view of my special field of investigation,” he answered a little sternly. “What reply did you make to him, Edna?”
“I merely said that I would tell you of the offer; that I didn’t know what you would think.”
“I wish you had refused it then and there.”
“I couldn’t do that, of course. The decision did not rest with me. Besides, Morgan, I thought you might think that we could not–er–afford to refuse it, and that as you would still be more or less connected with scientific matters, you might regard it as a happy compromise. Mr. Dale said,” she continued with incisive clearness in which there was a tinge of jubilation, “that on a conservative estimate you could count on ten or twelve thousand dollars a year, and his manner suggested that your share of the profits would be very much more than that.”
“The scientific part is a mere sop; it amounts to nothing. I should be a banker, engaged in floating new financial enterprises and selling their securities to the public.”
There was a brief silence. Edna rose and seating herself on the sofa beside him took his hands and said with solemn emphasis, “Morgan, if you think you will be unhappy–if you are satisfied that this change would not be the best thing for us, say so and let us give it up. Give it up and we will never think of it again.”
He looked her squarely in the face. “My God, Edna, I don’t know what to answer! It’s a temptation. So many things would be made easy. It comes to this, Is a man justified in refusing such an opportunity and sacrificing his wife and children in order to be true to his—-?”
She interrupted him. “If you put it that way, Morgan, we must decline. If you are going to break your heart–“
“Or yours–“
“Morgan, whichever way you decide I shall be happy, provided only you are sure. If you feel that you–we–all of us will be happier and er–more effective human creatures going on as we are, it is your duty to refuse Mr. Dale’s offer.”
“It’s a temptation,” murmured Morgan. “I must think it over, Edna. Am I bound to resist it?”
“Bound?”
“You know I may never be heard of in science outside of a few partial contemporaries.” His lip quivered with his wan smile.
“That has really nothing to do with it,” she asserted.
“I think it has, Edna,” he said simply. Then suddenly the remembrance of the conversation with his friend Randall recurred to him with vivid clearness. He looked up into his wife’s eyes and said, “After all, dear, it really rests with you. The modern woman is man’s helpmate and counsellor. What do you advise?”
Edna did not answer for a few moments. Her open, sensible brow seemed to be seeking to be dispassionate as a judge and to expel every vestige of prejudice.
“It’s a very close question to decide, Morgan. Of course, there are two distinct sides. You ask me to tell you, as your wife, what I think is wisest and best. I can’t set it forth as clearly as I should like–I won’t attempt to give my reasons even. But somehow my instinct tells me that if you don’t accept Mr. Dale’s offer, you will be sorry three years hence.”
“Then I shall accept, Edna, dear,” he said.
Three years later I took Mrs. Sidney Dale out to dinner at the house of a common friend in New York. In the course of conversation I remarked, “I believe it is you, Mrs. Dale, who is responsible for the metamorphosis in my friend, Morgan Russell.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“An old friend since college days. I never saw any one so spruced up, shall I call it? He has gained fifteen pounds, is growing whiskers, and is beginning to look the embodiment of worldly prosperity.”
“It is delightful to see them–both him and his wife. Yes, I suppose I may claim to be responsible for rescuing him from obscurity. My husband finds him a most valuable man in his business. I’m very fond of Mrs. Russell. She hasn’t the obnoxious ways of most progressive women, and she certainly has executive ability and common sense. Being such an indolent person myself, I have always been fascinated by her spirit and cleverness. I’m glad she has been given a chance. They are getting on nicely.”
“I think she is in her element now. I was at their house the other day,” I continued blandly. “It seems that Edna is prominent in various educational and philanthropic bodies, high in the councils of her club, and a leading spirit in diverse lines of reform. They are entertaining a good deal–a judicious sprinkling of the fashionable and the literary. The latest swashbuckler romances were on the table, and it was evident from her tone that she regarded them as great American literature. Everything was rose color. Morgan came home while I was there. His hands were full of toys for his children and violets for his wife. He began to talk golf. It’s a complete case of ossification of the soul–pleasant enough to encounter in daily intercourse, but sad to contemplate.”
Mrs. Dale turned in her chair. “I believe you’re laughing at me, Mr. Randall. What is sad? And what do you mean by ossification of the soul?”
Said I with quiet gravity, “Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year. Morgan Russell’s life is ruined–and the world had great hopes of him.”
Mrs. Dale, who is a clever person, in spite of her disclaimers, was silent a moment. “I know what you mean, of course. But I don’t agree with you in the least. And you,” she added with the air of a woman making a telling point–“you the recently appointed attorney of the paper trust, with a fabulous salary, you’re the last man to talk like that.”
I regarded her a moment with sardonic brightness. “Mrs. Dale,” I said, “it grieves us to see the ideals of our friends shattered.”