CHAPTER XV
THE NEW TYRANNY
ELLEN West discovered to her sorrow that freedom had its drawbacks. The first quarrel was a serious one. It had been settled by a complete surrender on her part. The settlement was far from satisfactory. The bitter taste of defeat remained.
The trouble was this idea of an open shop.
The conception of life was fundamental to the maintenance of the new creed. Manning must be free. She must be free. She had reasoned this out beyond argument. Freedom implied the right of any woman to bid for his favor. It implied the right of any man to bid for hers.
She tried for six months the plan of isolation. She dreaded another quarrel. Manning was the type of man who took quarrels seriously. He swore that all was forgiven and forgotten. She knew it was untrue. Again and again she caught him in absent-minded brooding. She knew the poison which their first quarrel had planted in his heart was still doing its deadly work.
She scrupulously avoided all social gatherings. If they should be together there might be a repetition of the misery of Brown’s week-end party. If she should go alone, he would be uneasy about the men who would show her attentions. That she should permit him to go alone was out of the question.
The tension of their perpetual suspicions was serious enough without the added strain of social frivolities. A new difficulty arose with the plan of isolation. They began to get on each other’s nerves. He chafed at the lack of the sane companionship of friends and acquaintances. She could see the brooding hunger in his eyes. He was thinking of his infernal old-fashioned ideal of a home fireside, children, and friends!
He began to spend more time at his clubs. He was a member of three now.
He lied about his clubs at first. A mild quarrel ensued--mild in its outburst of emotion, but deadly in its effect on their inner relations. He pretended to be tied down at his desk. She found one night that he was not at the office, called each of his clubs and located him. Next day, with deliberate malice, she asked him about his work the night before and led him into a description of its details.
She suddenly turned on him.
“You’re lying to me!”
Surprised for a moment he quickly recovered and shocked her with his answer. She expected him to fence and hedge and lie again. Instead he told her the brutal truth in a way that cut to the quick.
“Of course I lied. It seemed the easiest way. We’ve been getting on each other’s nerves lately. We’re seeing too much of one another.”
“And yet you wish to chain me for life with a marriage ceremony!”
He twisted his mouth with a savage force, drew his heavy eyebrows low and remained silent.
“You did; didn’t you?”
“Did what?” he asked absently.
“Wished to chain me for life!”
His mouth slowly relaxed and a dreamy look overspread his mobile face.
“Yes, I did, but the links of the chain I was dreaming about were made of baby fingers.”
She gave no answer. She refused to lower herself to the level of the old masculine subterfuge. Maternity was for the ignorant. Reproduction was the blindest, stupidest act of all nature. A fish could lay a million eggs in one season. She thanked God that she had passed the fish stage of self-development.
With an effort of supreme will she controlled her anger and ended the quarrel.
“Come, man, no more quarrels,” she said lightly. “Take me to a matinée. I’m hungry for a good play.”
For a month she skillfully avoided too many meetings, and saw with keen interest his revived loyalty. Again she was confirmed in her creed. It was the perpetual daily friction of personal contact that made marriage a martyrdom. She had been trying unconsciously to renew the same conditions.
There was still much lacking in the scheme of isolation. He must have human companionship. He must feel the touch of the world. The herd instinct in man she knew to be the oldest and deepest of all forces underlying character. She was trying to create a new world forgetting this force. It couldn’t be done.
The compromise must be found. Anxious hours she spent in working out its details. The only practical thing was a certain amount of publicity which must be given to the fact of their union by the new ceremony of announcement.
Again she was confronted with the old régime and its hateful celebration of the union of man and woman! And yet there seemed no other way out of an intolerable situation. It was impossible for a man and woman to completely isolate themselves from human society and find satisfaction merely in the union of their individual lives.
The remedy lay in a careful selection of free men and women as the chosen circle in which they would move. She determined to select these people and announce to each of them the fact of their union. Within this charmed circle of equals they would have a world all their own within a world of slaves.
She proposed the scheme for his approval.
“Do as you like, dear,” he replied carelessly. “It will be all right with me.”
“Don’t you think it will be the solution of our little troubles?” she asked with some irritation.
“Hadn’t thought of it--worth trying--go to it.”
His attitude of absorbed indifference roused her anger. Absorbed in himself and his career, and indifferent to hers or her happiness! But why fret and fume! If it were true, fretting and fuming would only aggravate, not cure the trouble.
She selected carefully a hundred men and women of intelligence and sympathy enrolled in the feminist movement. They belonged to the rational wing. Each one of them held equally positive views on the subject of marriage and they would view with approval or enthusiasm the experiment which she had inaugurated in the new code of social ethics.
She began in her Fifth Avenue apartment a series of afternoon teas and Sunday evening receptions. They were an instantaneous success. For the first time since her union with the man of her choice she felt thoroughly at ease in a social gathering. There was just the touch of adventure in the situation which gave it zest and lifted the affair above the banality of the ordinary social function.
She was the high priestess of a new religion and felt the strength of the faith of sympathetic followers.
Manning, of course, attended the functions. Otherwise they could have had no meaning, beyond the mere killing of time in pleasant social conversation. To Ellen’s annoyance she found that he was rapidly becoming the chief source of interest to the women. With increasing emphasis her followers were dilating on the beauty of freedom--with the accent on the freedom.
It was becoming more and more painfully evident that some of her less fortunate sisters who were possessed of a beauty which equalled hers, and yet struggled to make both ends meet on an income of twenty dollars a week, were attending with unfailing regularity. It was equally apparent that they had but the slightest interest in their hostess. They sought Manning with brazen effrontery and literally sat at his feet. There was no such thing as shaking them off.
Ellen watched them with amused contempt for a few weeks and then with growing anger. She could read in their cat-like eyes the cunning appraisal of his income. A man with an income of ten thousand a year they could not meet every day in New York. She watched their subtle flatteries and pandering to his masculine vanities.
Vera Daly, a young illustrator on the staff of her own magazine, was the most unscrupulous of the group of his satellites. She dressed with a voluptuous suggestiveness that bordered on vulgarity and affected the airs of high brow art in a way that provoked Ellen beyond endurance.
It reached a climax on a Thursday afternoon when she had absorbed Manning for more than an hour without giving even one of her rivals a chance to slip in a word edgewise.
Ellen watched the scene until she could endure it no longer. She walked straight to them and touched Miss Daly on the shoulder.
“May I see you a moment?”
The girl turned with a look of annoyed surprise and rose slowly.
“Won’t you excuse me, Mr. Manning,” she beamed, “while I answer Miss West’s call--don’t run away. I’ve a lot more to tell you.”
Ellen led the way to the balcony, entered her bedroom, and held the door open until the young artist had entered.
She closed the door quickly and faced the offender. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling with rage.
“Miss Daly, you attempt to make love to my mate every time you come to my apartment.”
The arched brows of the artist were lifted in a movement of contempt.
“We live in a new, free world, Miss West,” she drawled. “Mr. Manning is the most intellectual, the most charming man I have ever met. I was irresistibly drawn to him from the moment we were introduced.”
“The attraction has not been mutual.”
“Then why worry?”
“You are thrusting your attentions on him.”
The fine shoulders were slightly shrugged.
“I haven’t noticed any resentment on his part.”
“No, as my guest he must treat you politely.”
“He has, I assure you!” she laughed.
“I trust it will not be necessary for me to tell you in so many words that your presence is not desired here again.”
“Certainly not. I have Mr. Manning’s telephone.”
“He gave it to you?” she asked in rage.
“I asked him for it and he couldn’t refuse. I shall see him when I please, if he wishes it as much as I do. I like your cheek in taking me to task in this insulting manner. You are free to seek a new lover. He is free to respond to my love if I can win him.”
“You confess that you are in love with him?”
“He interests me. It’s a free world, you know. Do you wish me to leave immediately?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. I shall announce that I have been asked to leave the room because I made eyes at your property!”
Ellen gripped her arm.
“Stay, please. You are my guest. I apologize most humbly.”
“Don’t mention it,” she sneered, opening the door and hurrying downstairs.
Ellen watched her return to Manning’s side with deliberate malice and resume her conversation.
She made her decision instantly. These functions would not be repeated. They were enormously popular with the women. It was only too plain that the primitive instincts of the average woman could not be eradicated in a day.
The young she-devil with whom she had just fought would certainly stop at nothing to carry her point. She thought of the possibilities of her character with a shudder.
Manning heard the announcement of her decision with quiet joy.
“I’m glad you’ve had enough,” he said simply.
“You don’t mind the loss of so many charming admirers?” she asked unsteadily.
“I devoutly thank God to be rid of them!”
“Sure you don’t regret Miss Vera Daly?”
“Quite sure.”
“You were not even interested?”
“Interested in studying her as a type of the cheap adventuress who has adopted your creed in search of new emotions.”
A feeling of immense relief swept her.
“You’re a very sensible, honest-to-God old sweetheart!” she cried, and gave him a kiss.