Part 7

As she spoke she moved over to Rose’s portrait which still rested on an easel in the corner. It was a magnificent piece of work, the artist had dreamed his heart into it; the young head symbolized youth, purity, hope. The figure had the simplicity and loveliness of some beautiful Greek inspiration when the art of Greece was young. Margaret stood looking at it in silence, herself unaware of the sharp contrast between the pictured youth and enthusiasm of this girl and her own slim beauty, her subtly charming and unhappy face, which seemed to have lost that magic touch which is like a breath from the Elysian fields, the presence of belief, of hope, most of all of love. She turned at last and met Allestree’s thoughtful glance. “Bobby,” she said briefly, “you’re a fool.”

He smiled. “What else, oh, mine enemy?” he asked.

“Everything;” Margaret threw out both hands with a gesture which seemed to appeal to earth and heaven; “a blind fool, Bobby! You love her, she probably loves you, and yet you stand by and let her go! Fool, fool!” Margaret drew her brows down, her cheeks flaming:

“‘He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who fears to put it to the touch, To win or lose it all!’”

she quoted defiantly.

Allestree lighted another cigarette. “My dear Margaret,” he said, “let me show you this sketch of my mother.”

Margaret bit her lip and stood watching as he turned over two or three sketches. As he did so her quick eye caught familiar outlines. “So, that is Lily Osborne?” she said, with a hard little laugh; “I’m not sensitive, Bobby, let me see it. Did you know the latest gossip about her?”

Allestree shook his head. “Spare me!” he said smiling.

“Not a bit of it, you deserve no quarter!” Margaret took the sketch and looked at it, ignoring the one of Mrs. Allestree; “it’s good,” she commented with amusement; “how fine and full blooded she looks, and reptilian. The gossip is that she’s caused the recall of the Russian Ambassador; she’s been telling tales out of school, the female diplomatist, you know! What did you do, by the way, when she met Rose here?”

“Oh, we got on,” said Allestree laughing; “what of it?”

“You haven’t heard?” Margaret laughed; “Rose went there to one of madame’s small and earlies; you know the kind? It seems they played bridge and Rose didn’t understand it was for money; imagine a lamb in the hands of wolves! Poor little simpleton! Well, Lily told her at last that she owed two hundred. Rose fled home, and the judge--” Margaret laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “Old Testament Christian, you know! He sent the check but he told Rose to cut her dead.”

“I knew there was something; Rose never told me, but they speak,” he rejoined, “the way you women do! In spite of your shrugs, Margaret, you know the ethics of the thing were abominable; it’s swindling.”

Margaret continued to laugh. “My dear Bobby,” she said, “Rose isn’t sixteen and we all play bridge; I lost six hundred last night; she should have known. It’s tiresome to be a madonna on a pillar!”

“Still Rose was right,” he said bluntly.

“Oh, granted!” Margaret touched his arm lightly; “and you love her!”

Allestree made an impatient movement. “Don’t torture me, Margaret!” he said sharply.

She whirled around and held out both hands, her eyes moist. “I’m a brute, Bobby!” she cried; “forgive me--I always say the wrong thing unless some one sets me a copy; let’s talk about Mahomet’s coffin!”

X

WITH Margaret things had reached a crisis long before that culminating moment of remorseful emotion in Allestree’s studio; at last the realities of life--as they appear separated from its pleasures and its follies--were forced upon her. Too young at the time of her marriage to comprehend its full significance, as a mere act of barter and exchange, she had never seriously anticipated her position as White’s wife; it had been shrouded in a nebulous haze of gratified vanity, of pleasures and indulgences, for she was glad to shirk the thought of it. Her awakening, therefore, had been accompanied with a shock of horror and disgust.

White had been kind to her at first; even the most common and violent of brute creatures is often kind to its chosen mate, and he was proud of her beauty, determined to get the value of his money out of her social distinction; but her capricious temper, her bitter tongue and her indifference soon had their natural effect. His kindness wore itself out and when angry he could be tolerably brutal, for his temper, at best, was coarse and exacting. She had come at last to look upon the beautiful house, the lavish display, the sumptuous living as so much gilded misery, and, possessing no talisman to give her contentment, her stormy nature spent itself in rebellion and in a growing regret for her own folly. She saw, at last, in Fox all the qualities which she most admired; her mind answered his with a subtilty, a kindred sympathy which seemed to assure her of his love, to justify her assumption that his feeling had never changed. In her eager pursuit of happiness she had thought to purchase it first with beauty, then with money and now with love--the beggar’s price! It was the absorbing impulse of her being; religion she had none, except the religion of self-indulgence. Standing on the brink of disaster she still demanded happiness; it was her creed, her gospel, her divine right. The temptation of it, too, pursued her; how easy to obtain a divorce from Wicklow, a word almost and it was done! It was true that there would be a great scandal but, after all, the scandal could only add a zest to her social success; she was young, beautiful, distinguished, and if she broke the shackles that bound her could she not begin all over again? Intoxicating dream,--how full of temptation it was, of alluring sweetness! After all, does not the devil appear to us in the shape of an angel of light?

What were ethics compared with her inalienable right to be happy? The thought of it made her draw a keen breath of relief. Free!--She alone knew the value of that word.

The children crossed her mind only occasionally; Estelle was more and more like her father every day, and as for the baby? Margaret had only vague conceptions of his possibilities; she had seen but little of him since his birth, except in his nurse’s arms, but she had recognized that odious likeness to the Whites. Of course old Mrs. White would take them; she adored them, and Margaret felt that she knew more about them than she did. After a while when they grew up--but Margaret could not afford to dwell upon it. They were associated with her misery, her captivity, as she chose to call it, and she could not love them; she shrank, indeed, from the thought of them, and the responsibility that their existence had thrust upon her, as so many links in her chains.

She returned from her interview with Allestree in a curious frame of mind. Her unreasonable discourtesy to the Vermilions and Mrs. Wingfield--people who really only hovered on the edge of her horizon--her insistent attacks upon Allestree’s sore heart, had all been prompted by her own feverish misery. Once alone in her room she went to the mirror, and holding up one of the candelabra, gazed long and fixedly at her own reflection, asking over again the question she had asked herself on the night of Mrs. O’Neal’s dinner. Had she lost her beauty? Was the potency of her spell destroyed in some mysterious way? Hideous thought--was she growing old?

She saw, indeed, all that she had seen in Allestree’s mirror, and more; the misery that looked out of her own eyes frightened her, and there were more delicate lines than there had been on that previous occasion, or else the light was stronger. This was the reason then of the senseless stare of Miss Vermilion’s china blue eyes--Margaret wondered vaguely why girls of that sort always had china blue eyes?

She set down the candelabrum, and sinking into a chair by the open fire began to brood over her troubles, forgetful that she must be dressed soon for her own reception; it was the night when her weekly guests assembled at those already famous evenings. Her thoughts reverted to Fox; the remembrance of his love for her was like the sudden fragrance of violets in a desolate place.

He had loved her; it never seemed possible for a moment that a word, a sign, could not reanimate his passion, as a breath of air will strike fire from the smouldering embers. Now, too, she could appreciate and understand his love; she was no longer a raw slip of a girl or a stiff little Puritan like Rose Temple! But she knew the barrier which existed between them; never by a word or a sign had Fox trespassed against White’s hospitality, he would never urge her to desert her husband, but if she were free--

She rose and began to walk about the room, touching first one object and then another with restless fingers; the thought of freedom was like wine, it went to her brain; the vision of the divorce court, the lawyers, the judges, the newspapers, floated into space. She stretched her clasped hands high above her head and drew a long breath, her soul almost shouted for joy. Freedom!

It was, next to happiness, the desired of the gods! And after all did not one involve the other, was not one absolutely essential to the other?

She wondered, with a smile, why they talked so much cant about marriage and divorce? Had they suffered as she had suffered they would rejoice, as she did, at the thought that there were divorces, that one could be free again!

Free--good heavens! Not to see him every day, not to hear his voice, with that mean, trivial rasp in it, not to be one of his chattels!

And Rose? Margaret did not allow herself to dwell too long upon that vision of the girl’s young figure, her fair, animated face against the background of the cedars and the sky. Was she jealous of her? That was an ignominy too deep to contemplate without bitter self-abasement; she refused to believe it! The shuddering certainty which had drained the life-blood from lip and cheek became now, on reflection, a fancy of her feverish brain. Such a raw, simple creature as Rose was no mate for William Fox; that indisputable attraction of opposites, which is one of the laws of nature, for a moment lost its significance in her eyes; she would not believe it. It was not quite natural for her, though, to take this view, even for a moment, for a woman, as a rule, has less faith in the endurance of a man’s love than he has in it himself, because she has usually discovered that the heart of the ordinary male creature is uncommonly like a pigeon-cote!

She was determined to forget all these things; she walked to and fro battling with herself, her restless hands sometimes at her throat and sometimes clasped behind her head. The strong passion of rebellion which shook her being amazed even herself. She would never give him up! She could not--to Rose or to any one; her starved heart cried out against surrender and defeat, he was hers--_hers_.

Her maid’s knock at the door startled her, she stopped short and passed her hands over her eyes, her face burned; she no longer lacked color, her cheeks had the flush of fever. The girl, coming in to dress her, was surprised by her high colored beauty, the brilliance of her eyes, and began to lay out the gown and its accessories with nervous fingers, half expecting one of Margaret’s wild bursts of temper. But her mistress seemed only concerned with her toilet; one gown after another was tried on and rejected until at last she was arrayed in a shimmering dress of violet and silver which was as delicate as the tints of the sky at moonrise. She allowed no ornament on her white neck and arms except a single diamond star which clasped the ribbon around her throat.

Nothing could have been more perfect than her manner to her guests. It was one of those occasions, growing constantly more rare, when White had no reason to complain. She was charming to all, from the most distinguished to the most socially obscure, she forgot her prejudices, she even forgot to snub her husband’s political protégés--to their infinite and undisguised relief--and to her own particular coterie she was the old, charming, inimitable Margaret. As on the occasion of her musicale, men predominated, and among those men were all the notables at the capital. Speaking several languages, Margaret had made her house a Mecca for all Europeans; it was an open secret that she espoused the cause of the Russian ambassador against his secret enemy, Lily Osborne, and espoused it with a zeal which caused a whispered sensation in official circles. It was an anxious question what Mrs. White might not dare to do, for it was believed that she would pause at nothing in her determination to defeat Mrs. Osborne. Yet it was never hinted that she concerned herself even remotely with White’s devotion to the fair _divorcée_. Her indifference to her husband was a fact too generally accepted to cause even a ripple in the stream.

There had been much secret comment on her changed and haggard looks, but her dryadlike loveliness to-night silenced every whisper, and her gayety, her ease, her clever, reckless talk proclaimed her the same Margaret they had always known and loved and feared, whose wit was as keen as it was cruel.

Mrs. O’Neal was the first to bid her good-night. The old lady in her gorgeous panoply of silk and velvet tottered on, like an ancient war-horse answering the bugle call, her white head vibrating as she talked. Still athirst for social power and success, no one was a keener judge of achievements, and she patted Margaret’s hand.

“My dear,” she whispered, “you’re the most charming creature in the world when you choose! I’m old enough to tell you.”

“I can never equal you,” Margaret retorted lightly, “even when I choose!”

“There! It was worth the risk to get the compliment!” the older woman laughed back; “and your husband, he looked most distinguished to-night, and those dear children--I saw them in the park! Be good, my child, and you’ll be happy!” and she smiled complacently at the axiom as she moved away, a figure of ancient gayety in tight shoes and costly stays. An hour later when her maid had taken her to pieces, she presented a spectacle at once instructive and amazing.

Following Mrs. O’Neal’s exit, the accepted signal for departure, Margaret’s guests began to flow past her in a steady stream, stopping a moment for the individual farewells or congratulations on the pleasures of a brilliant evening. She was standing just inside the ballroom door alone, for White had been summoned unexpectedly to the White House a half-hour previously, his departure adding to the zest of gossip and speculation upon the political situation. Margaret’s slim figure in its shimmering dress, her animated face, the peculiar charm of her smile, had never been more observed; she was beautiful. Those who had questioned it, those who had been only half convinced and those who had denied it, were alike overwhelmed with its manifestation. It seemed as if the intangibility of her much disputed charm had vanished and her beauty had taken a visible shape, was crystallized and purified by some fervent emotion which made her spirit illuminate it as the light shines through an alabaster lamp.

One by one they pressed her hand and passed on, feeling the inspiration of her glance; one white haired diplomat bent gracefully and kissed her fingers, an involuntary tribute which brought a faint blush to her cheek.

Fox was among the last to approach, and as he did so she stopped him with a slight but imperative gesture. “Stay a moment, William,” she murmured, with almost a look of appeal, “I want to speak to you.”

Thus admonished he turned back, conscious that by so doing he startled a glance of comprehension in the eyes of Louis Berkman, who was following him, which annoyed him for Margaret’s sake. He went over to the fireplace and stood watching the falling embers while the remaining guests made their adieux, then as the rustle and murmur of their departure grew more distant and lost itself in the rooms beyond, he turned and saw her coming down the long room alone and was startled by the extreme youthfulness and fragility of her appearance, and by the discovery, which came to him with the shock of surprise, that her radiant aspect had slipped from her with her departing guests, that her face was colorless and pinched, though her eyes were still feverishly bright.

“It was good of you to stay,” she said, coming to the fire and holding out her hands to the blaze; “how cold it is for the first of April. Sit down, William, and let me send for wine and cigarettes; you look tired.”

He raised a deprecating hand. “No more hospitality,” he said firmly; “you’ve done enough; you’ve lost all your color now.”

“Except what I put on with a brush,” she said dryly, clasping her hands and letting her long white arms hang down before her as she looked across at him with a keen glance. “I know--you’ve eaten nothing here since Wicklow broke his word and the rest of it. You won’t eat his bread!”

Fox colored. “Should I be here in that case?” he asked.

She shook her head, glancing at the fire. “You can’t fool me--I understand.”

“Come, I must go,” he said firmly; “it is very late and you look wearied to death. You must be, you were absolutely the life of it to-night; you should have heard old de Caillou rhapsodize!”

“Did I do well--did I look my best?” she asked, her lip quivering like a child’s, her eyes still on the fire.

“You were your own happy self!” he replied.

She looked up, her slight figure swaying a little as she wrung her hands together; the tears rained down her cheeks. “Billy,” she sobbed, “I’m wretched--I--I can’t stand it any longer, it will kill me!”

XI

FOX stood aghast at the force, the agony, the abandon of Margaret’s confession. Any presentiment which might have warned him had been disarmed by her previous gayety.

Almost unconsciously his hand met hers, which was stretched out in a mute appeal. He drew her to a chair. “Sit down,” he said, in an unsteady voice, with an impotent impulse of resistance; “try to calm yourself! This is dreadful!”

She obeyed him mechanically; sinking into the great armchair and turning her face against it, she continued to weep, her whole delicate frame shaken and quivering with her emotion.

Fox stood still holding her hand and looking down at her in deep perplexity. He was intuitively aware of the extreme peril and delicacy of the situation for them both, only too certain of her wild and unguarded impulses, and that moment--more supremely than ever--revealed to him the absolute demise of his own passion. He tried to quiet her, speaking a few gentle and soothing words, sharply conscious of their inadequacy.

But she scarcely heeded them. After a moment the storm spent itself, and she turned, revealing her white, tear-stained face which was still beautiful in spite of her weeping. “There comes a time,” she said, in a low voice, “when one can bear it no longer--when one would rather die.”

“For God’s sake, Margaret, don’t say such things!” he exclaimed, profoundly moved.

Her lips quivered. “Is it so dreadful to say them?” she retorted passionately; “when you feel them? When they are burned into your flesh? I’m so weary of conventionalities. I tell you that I can’t bear it, that I will not bear it any longer!”

As she spoke she rose and stood facing him, her eyes feverishly bright and moist with unshed tears. “You ask too much of me, you have no right to ask it--no one has!” she continued, her lip quivering again; “I cannot be silent--it’s killing me by inches!”

Fox colored deeply; he was suddenly forced into an impossible position. “My dear Margaret,” he said gravely, “I have no words to meet it; you must know how profoundly I feel it!”

“If I did not--if I were not sure of you!” she replied, a little wildly, “it would kill me sooner. Sometimes I have wanted to die. The doctors say that I have heart trouble--I hope I have! If I believed in prayer I should have prayed to die.”

“Margaret! is it as bad as that?” he cried, in sudden uncontrollable pity; he remembered her as so young, so beautiful, so happy!

Her lips twitched. “As bad as that?” she repeated wildly; “I feel like a trapped squirrel, a rabbit in a snare, I can only shriek because it hurts me--it isn’t bad enough yet to kill! I’m caged--oh, William, William, help me get out!”

“Margaret!” he exclaimed sharply, “don’t you know that I can’t hear this? This is White’s house, I’ve broken his bread. My God, how dreadful it all is!”

Her hand clenched unconsciously at her side, her white neck rose and fell with her tortured breathing, a horrible doubt had assailed her. Then the light broke over her face; he loved her, that was it, and he was too honorable to speak! She held out both hands. “William, forgive me,” she murmured softly, “but what have we gained by silence? What does it all matter to the world? But you must go, perhaps I did wrong to tell you now! Good-night, I--I--”

Her lips quivered pitifully. “I have always loved you--don’t think me a wicked woman.”

“Margaret!” he groaned, deeply, terribly touched, yet with a sickening consciousness of his own unresponsive heart.

She smiled faintly, moving away from him toward the stairs. “Oh, you must go, good-night!” she repeated, as he paused half reluctant. “I’m resolved, nothing shall change me--in a little while--” she paused and he saw the change in her face, its lighting up and softening, the revelation of its beauty, its subtle charm; saw it with a slow agony of remorse and reluctance; “in a little while,” she said, and her smile was wonderful, “I shall be free!”

Fox scarcely knew how he got out of the house; he left it in a dream and went directly home to his own apartments in an uptown flat. The distance was not great and he scarcely allowed himself to think. His mind was almost confused by the sudden and blinding climax. But as he opened his door, and the dog, Sandy, leaped to meet him, a rush of feeling swept away his passive resistance; he forced himself to turn on the lights more fully and to look about at the familiar objects which met his eyes on all sides, his books, his pictures, his littered writing-table; he even picked up the evening mail, which his clerk had left in its accustomed place, and looked over the pile of letters and pamphlets. But it cost him an effort.